Questions2008 Spring Meeting Roundtable Program
Knowledge, Commitment, and Service: What NWP Teachers Bring to Education
Friday, April 4, 2008
Round A: 10:45–11:45 A.M.
Round B: 12:00–1:00 P.M.
All sessions are available in each round. All roundtable discussions will take place at the Washington Court Hotel.
Advocating for Your Site
This roundtable will offer insight into the ways that writing project sites can strengthen their presence and increase their influence on the vast and changing educational landscape. We will discuss the latest educational decisions and policies, and will then address two questions: How do writing project sites find their niche in the maze of reforms? How do sites describe their work and its results in a way that highlights their significant contributions?
Presenter: Ellin Nolan, Washington Partners LLC
Location: Madison Room, Lower Lobby Level
Conversation with Sonia Nieto
Round A: Join our keynote speaker for an informal question-and-answer session. Sonia Nieto’s scholarly work has focused on multicultural and bilingual education, curriculum reform, teacher education, Puerto Rican children’s literature, and the education of Latinos, immigrants, and other culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.
Round B: The noon roundtable will be conducted by members of the ELL Leadership Team and will offer the opportunity to talk further about Sonia’s work and influence.
Presenters: Sonia Nieto (10:45); Mary Arias, South Coast Writing Project, and Nancy Coco, Lehigh Valley Writing Project (12:00)
Location: Montpelier Room, Mezzanine Level
Developing Wise Eyes Together: Considerations for Prompting and Examining Student Writing
What kinds of considerations guide the prompting of student writing? What happens once the papers are written, when teachers read them together? Join us for a discussion of what we might consider when designing or revising prompts and how we can create learning opportunities by having teachers read the resulting student papers together.
Presenters: Paul LeMahieu, Linda Friedrich, and Sherry Swain, National Writing Project
Location: Atrium Ballroom, Mezzanine Level
Embedded Institutes: Bringing the Writing Project to Your School
Teachers from the Rhode Island Writing Project will share their experiences with Embedded Institutes, yearlong professional development programs jointly run by their site and by teachers in the schools. How do these institutes play out? How do we plan for teachers of different grade levels, experience levels, and subject areas? How can we attract content-area teachers, build momentum, and sustain the professional development over the long haul? Participants will be invited to explore the advantages and disadvantages of providing professional development in their own schools.
Presenters: Dina Sechio DeCristofaro, Deanna Parrillo, and Jill Usenia, Rhode Island Writing Project
Location: Mount Vernon Room, Lower Lobby Level
Empowering Our Students for Writing on Demand: The Study Group Model
This roundtable session will explore how teacher-leaders can work together to empower both themselves and their students in on-demand writing situations while remaining true to what we know about effective writing instruction. We will discuss how writing project teacher-consultants can take on similar challenges in their own states by designing and conducting inquiry into a problem using an approach that includes reading professional publications, writing, and looking at student work.
Presenter: Meg Petersen, Plymouth Writing Project
Location: Monticello Room, Lower Lobby Level
Finding Common Ground: Conversations About High School and College Writers
High school and college writing teachers hear lots of rumors about what happens at the other level but rarely have the chance to talk face to face. Come explore ways writing project sites can create opportunities for high school and college teachers to come together, find common ground in their expectations of students’ writing, and develop creative approaches to meeting shared objectives for high school and college writing. Creating opportunities for teachers to share their values, their curriculum, and the challenges they face can help us support students in their transition as writers from high school to college.
Presenters: Bruce Penniman and Jane Baer-Leighton, Western Massachusetts Writing Project
Location: Senate Room, Mezzanine Level
The Challenge of Creating Effective Professional Development for Urban Teachers
Two DCAWP teachers will lead a discussion about providing urban teachers with sustained, high-quality professional development that takes into consideration the realities of their practice. How do we make positive change in a climate that too often focuses on scripted programs and test-taking skills? What content do we emphasize and in what ways do we give teachers—both new and novice—the confidence and knowledge to teach academic literacy in their classrooms? Join us with your ideas, experiences, and questions.
Presenters: Susan Coti and Cecile Thorne, District of Columbia Area Writing Project
Location: Ashlawn Room, Lower Lobby Level
The Oral History Project
This version of an oral history project has proven to be transformative to the students and the community. Oral history has been in use in curriculums for years, but the organization of this particular project lends itself to success by all students. This interactive session will examine the seven components—interview, research, artifacts, feature article, memoir, portrait, and presentation—and show how they become a whole. Emphasis will be on both the academic components of the project and the human aspect.
Presenter: Dick Heyler, Endless Mountains Writing Project
Location: Capitol Room, Mezzanine Level
What Can We Learn from Student Writing in an Online Collaborative Space?
In this roundtable session, Jason Shiroff, a teacher of fourth and fifth grade, will share work and reflections from a teacher research project that explores student use of a collaborative online writing space as part of a cross-disciplinary unit. Jason’s students have been using this forum to document and reflect on work within a project-based learning environment. Session participants will examine student work examples and discuss how online tools might support writing and reflection across content areas.
Presenter: Jason Shiroff, Denver Writing Project
Location: Sagamore Hill I, Lower Lobby Level
What If the Writing Rubrics We Refer to and Teach with Don’t Make Sense?
During the last year, as part of a Local Site Research Initiative (LSRI) project, we repeatedly asked ourselves how we might evaluate on-demand writing produced by second language learners. In the process we wondered whether features of good writing cross cultures (or not). We wondered what second-language learners learn (or not) about what makes good writing when their teachers use and refer to writing rubrics written in English. In this interactive session we would like to discuss these issues while assessing samples of writing produced by second language learners using a translated (into Spanish) NWP rubric.
Presenters: Fabiola Lieberstein-Solera, Tom Meyer, and Martha Young, Hudson Valley Writing Project
Location: Sagamore Hill II, Lower Lobby Level
Where’s the Rub? Reflections on the Power, Peril, and Potential of Technology Integration into the Writing Classroom
What are the special powers that technologies bring to the literacy classroom? What are the dangers and pitfalls? What does “literacy” mean in the digital age? How do teachers decide what to try with their students? Inverness Research has been studying several facets of NWP’s technology initiative. In this roundtable we will share some big ideas that are emerging in the work, and will also identify “the rubs”—those questions and dilemmas that beg for further inquiry. We will encourage you to add to and challenge these observations from your own experiences.
Presenters: Laura Stokes and Pam Castori, Inverness Research
Location: Hermitage Room, Lower Lobby Level