NWP Speaks: 30 Years of Writing Project Voices
By: Richard Argys, Joe Bellacero, Vanessa Brown, Dana Dusbiber, Lynette Herring-Harris, Rudy J. Miera, Rochelle Ramay, Ralph Cordova
Publication:
The Voice, Vol. 9, No. 3
Date: 2004
Summary: In the fourth of five parts to this series, writers reflect on their experiences in NWP national programs and at national program events.
NWP NATIONAL PROGRAMS AND SITES
A chance to follow our own individual journeys as learners among a diverse group of colleagues, rich talk about teaching and learning, and lots of writing. A National Writing Project summer institute? Yes, but also NWP national programs. Resting on the same principles and values as our work at writing project sites, NWP national programs offer teacher-consultants and site leaders the opportunity to step outside their local sites, encounter new ideas and perspectives, and bring those ideas home. Here three teacher-consultants share some of their early experiences with national programs and events.
The venues for national program events are as varied as the events themselves.
Here Lynn Jacobs, a teacher-consultant with the Northern California Writing
Project, and Joe Check, director of the Boston Writing Project, confer over
her paper during the English Language Learners Network Writing Retreat in
Washington State in June. |
"First Evers"
by Rudy J. Miera
She finished by sharing a greeting in her native language, and then we rested as the workshop participants buzzed about language equity, writing as a bridge, and common experiences in our classrooms. I gave Diana un abrazo—a hug—and told her, "You know, you just made history. Not just by being part of our presentation on bilingual issues in New Mexico but by probably being the first person to ever speak some words in Zuni in the state of New Jersey. The first ever."
Looking back at that first NWP Project Outreach Summer Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, during that scorching August of 1996, I can recall lots of "first evers." What was stunningly significant about this meeting was not just that public school teachers from Puerto Rico to Alaska had gathered to deal with the issues of relevance, diversity, and access faced by teachers of children of poverty, but that cultural exchanges took place constantly behind the scenes. I swapped teacher stories with colleagues from California, the Midwest, the South, and the Northeast.
I remember my first-ever marathon joke-telling session with Kim from Mississippi. There was my first-ever experience of dancing the Macarena with more than four dozen teachers, led by Janet from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I recall having the soul-stirring experience of hearing a teacher from rural Louisiana (Lorena, I think) sing gospel songs a cappella after workshop participants had wandered off to late-night coffee and conversations. So many of my memories now dash from my grasp like the fireflies that I tried to catch on the lawn that surrounded the pond outside our dorm. Fireflies. Now that was a first ever for somebody from New Mexico.
But my most important first-ever experience was being asked to spend time in deep reflection about our writing project site and its service area. As a result, our team put together— and soon after implemented—a plan to contact current and previous teachers who had been with the project. This initiative resulted in some dynamic, career-reenergizing reunions.
It would be hard to find a more diverse group of people than the one that came together that week in New Jersey. We were Chicanas, African-Americans, descendants of Swedes and Jewish immigrants from California. We came from the District of Columbia; from Detroit, Michigan; and Zuni, New Mexico. We put up displays that featured Louisiana doubloons and beads, Puerto Rican coquí pins, New Mexico Zia-symbol postcards. Teachers from the inner cities, the rural outskirts, the barrios, the hoods, and the boroughs enthusiastically told the stories behind the many photos of children they had brought with them.
Although we came from many places, we left with a unified commitment to advance the issues of access, diversity, and relevance in education—a commitment that has been a big part of the writing project mission ever since.
*****
NWP Urban Sites Conference Scratches an Itch
by Joe Bellacero
For me, the 2003 National Writing Project Urban Sites Conference began in a meeting room of the Santa Barbara Public Library, with chairs in a circle and a comfortable writing prompt before us: "Choose a sentence from T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain that resonates with you and write it in marker on the large strip of paper we have distributed."
Unbothered by the fact that I hadn't read the book (somehow I had signed up for the session "Writing Under the Influence of The Tortilla Curtain" without realizing it was a book, let alone that I should buy it and read it), I knew that I would be able to find something quickly. So instead of starting right in, I sat back and watched the other participants. Some, like me, were cracking the spines of brand-new books that the facilitators had thoughtfully brought and distributed. Others turned to a favored section of their well-marked, dog-eared, curled-edged editions and began immediately writing. One lovely woman sat with the book open on her lap, idly scratching an ankle as she was drawn back into the pages. She never did write down a passage, just read and scratched. Did she finally satisfy her itch?
Obviously, we were all in Santa Barbara to satisfy various itches. There was the desire to connect with others who encounter many of the same challenges we face and who are willing to share the work they have done to overcome those challenges. There was the need to present our own work and to use any feedback from others as a lens to help us see what we have accomplished and to help us find fresh avenues to pursue. There was the urge to locate resources that we could use ourselves. And, of course, there was the primal hunger, no doubt as ancient as the species, to be in Santa Barbara in the spring. These are pleasant itches of the kind that seem to grow even as they are satisfied.
Our hosts, the staff of the South Coast Writing Project in Santa Barbara, California, must have had many crushingly busy days and late nights to pull this together, yet the two-day conference appeared seamless and inspiring. The setting, between the ocean and the mountains, was inspiring. The company was inspiring. The schools, writing opportunities, and the presentations were inspiring. And the workshops were both inspired and inspiring. I found myself looking forward to the next Urban Sites Conference. After all, the need for inspiration is an itch that can never be scratched enough.
*****
It's Always the People Who Make It Work
by Richard Argys
Somehow, the great things that happen in our summer institutes get duplicated at national programs and events. This was true for me as a participant at the 2004 National Writing Project English Language Learners Network Writing Retreat. At the beautiful Sleeping Lady mountain retreat in Washington, I found plenty of quality writing time; supportive colleagues who united in makeshift but nurturing and productive writing groups; and the exchange of effective teaching methods, approaches, and concerns with other dedicated educators.
Writing, writing everywhere...and definitely a part of every NWP gathering. Here, at the Rural Sites Network Rural Institute this summer, writer participants Jennifer Baggerly and Renee Callies, both of the Third Coast Writing Project, Michigan, find a functional, although not so comfortable, spot to write.
|
I paid close attention as my colleagues talked through or read aloud their
own pieces-in-progress each day, reminded that most of us go through similar,
and often frustrating, two-steps-forward, one-step-backward processes in our
writing. We all formulated—or had come with—questions to explore in
our writing about English language learners teaching, wrestled with how best
to address our topics, finally jumped in headfirst and tried to get it all down
on paper as best we could, and then went about rediscovering and reworking what
we'd created. Many of us ended up following paths in our writing that were
different from what we originally intended, but everyone made progress—no
matter how frustrated, confused, or lost in our own pieces we all felt at times.
It was satisfying to get so much work done, instructive to listen and hear my
new friends work through their processes and problems, and helpful to receive
responses to my own ideas and writing.
As important as anything, this retreat allowed me to connect personally with committed professionals from dramatically different school settings around the country—people who work hard to put students' needs first, who strive constantly to learn the best methods and approaches to teaching, and who generously share own experiences and best practices with colleagues. I value the sense of renewed purpose that these professional exchanges and connections offered me.
*****
TEACHERS AS LEADERS AND LEARNERS
National programs, like writing project sites, are led by teachers for teachers. How do teacher-consultants become national leaders? What knowledge and experience fuels their work? Here, three teacher-consultants look at their pathways into national leadership.
Learning to Be a Leader
by Dana Dusbiber
The year was 1999, and the event was the first meeting of the National Writing Project English Language Learner Network Leadership Team. Members represented writing project sites from across the country—Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and California. We had two things in common: our experience with English language learners and our interest in promoting dialogues addressing the issues of equity and education. Norma Mota-Altman was the impetus behind our gathering, and she was our team's first chairperson.
Norma had been a powerful force on behalf of English language learners. Her dedication to her work as a classroom teacher and her vast knowledge about the issues gave credibility to her voice as an advocate for this group of too-often disenfranchised students. Norma's contributions to her local site gave her the practical experience of working within the NWP structure. So by the time she came to lead our team, she was a familiar and well-respected teacher-consultant.
My initiation to the team happened mostly by chance. I had been a teacher-consultant for five years and was considerably smitten with the writing project model, yet I didn't consider myself a leader at my site. It was just my good fortune that the two "experts" on the issues at my site were not available to join the team. I agreed to join the team mostly out of curiosity but not without a bit of trepidation. Since I didn't consider myself an authority on the issues, I wondered what the other team members would be like. Would I feel small in their presence? What I had to contribute was simple: I was a classroom teacher who cared about the education of my students, and I was deeply committed to the writing project's model of professional dialogue and teacher leadership.
We came together, telling teacher stories and finding that we were committed to a shared set of ideals. We struggled those first few days to craft our network's mission statement and goals, and we went forward from there to determine the kind of work we wanted to do. We dreamt big. We talked about how the NWP structure could support our dreams, and we followed the lead of other networks in planning our first steps.
Looking back over the past five years, we've successfully initiated and supported many of the projects and ongoing structures that the team set out to accomplish. There have been setbacks along the way. We've chastised each other for neglecting important emails. We've made mistakes. We've also been dismayed, at times, by the lack of progress on the national front. Yet we've used that disappointment to refine our goals and better define the common vocabulary that we promote around the controversial act of educating English language learners.
As for me, I am privileged to have been invited to join this national work. I have an insight into the larger picture of the writing project and a new appreciation of how my writing project site fits into that picture. I have met dedicated writing project teachers from sites across the country, and we have grappled together with the tough political and educational issues facing us as we advocate for the English language learners in our classrooms and communities.
*****
Composing Our Professional Lives Alongside Beginning Teachers
by Ralph Cordova
To look is one thing.
To see what you look at is another.
To learn from what you understand is still something else.
But to act on what you learn is all that really matters.
—The Talmud
These lines from the Talmud have helped me navigate my professional journey as a teacher and teacher-researcher. A colleague introduced me to them as a way to help me understand the conceptual nature of teaching for social justice, but for me they have also come to illustrate the recursive nature of learning and teaching. Lately I have begun to draw on this Talmudic expression to understand and navigate the various journeys I am taking as a teacher. In this process, I have come to understand that I am—as all of us are—actively composing a professional life.
I have learned from researching my own teaching practices in the context of third grade and then in the setting of a teacher preparation program that the decisions we make as teachers—intentional or not—have far-reaching consequences for student learning and for our own professional learning. I have learned to see that I am co-researching with my students, not doing research on them. It is never a singular, one-sided journey. When I see again, revise, and re-search, then I must poke around at where I have been in order to see that the kind of teacher-researcher I am today and am becoming, has been and is being shaped and influenced by my colleagues and all the experiences I have had.
My experience in many National Writing Project settings has shown me that colleagues also grapple with similar experiences. My unfolding work as a member of the New-Teacher Initiative Leadership Team has helped me learn from members' individual and collective brilliance. These experiences, when examined, teach us about how we can support beginning teachers beyond teaching them a bag of tricks. By researching our professional lives in relationship to our work in the larger professional development "classroom" that is the National Writing Project, we might get a chance to revise and re-see as we begin to research the phenomenon of becoming teachers.
As a member of the New-Teacher Initiative Leadership Team, I was given the opportunity to become a member of an evolving community of practice whose mission is to support beginning teachers. In the process, however, I began to ask questions about whether it is only beginning teachers who need to learn how to reflect on and inquire into their practices. My colleagues encouraged me to draw on my own inquiry stance toward my practice in order to make visible my developing ideas on this subject. NWP has provided us with the resources and opportunities for dialogue that enrich us as we go about composing our professional lives. This has supported me in my thinking about the nature of professional development and its role in both reflecting on and developing an inquiry stance to our practice. Working together, my colleagues and I consider different views of what beginning teachers need and how we can provide them with the space, time, and skills to engage in the reflection and inquiry so necessary to our practice.
*****
Looking Inward
by Lynette Herring-Harris
In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer explains that teaching "emerges from one's inwardness." There is something honest and appealing about the notion of learning by looking inward. The National Writing Project builds leadership on that very premise.
In my own experience as a participant and then a national leader with the NWP Project Outreach Network, I've watched site leaders learn about the teachers, students, and schools in their local service areas by examining the local site infrastructure and working to create more relevant opportunities for teacher and student learning. Through the lenses of access, relevance, and diversity, we've begun to clarify our writing project's strengths and weaknesses. Some folks might say that these self-studies are often messy and not worth the effort. I would argue that point. My experience tells me that self-study is how leadership emerges. Self-examination means continually challenging the status quo, feeling a responsibility to design professional contexts that affect the needs of a diverse student and teacher population. As a teacher-leader turned national coordinator for Project Outreach, I value self-study because it produces transformative leaders who are willing to step back, look at their writing project in new ways, appreciate what is good about the site, and constructively examine its weaknesses.
A little over 30 years ago, Jim Gray, one of the founders of the Bay Area Writing Project and NWP, must have done a little looking inward himself. I once asked him if he had any idea that his model for summer writing institutes, continuity, and inservice would transform thousands of classrooms across the nation. He said he was not aware, in the beginning, of the model's transformative power. Yet we all know that the NWP brand of transformative leadership has made us better teachers. Now, a new generation of writing project leaders is coming forward from classrooms across the nation. How will these new leaders care for this professional network that has changed the lives of so many teachers and students? Thirty years from now will others look inward at NWP and find the depth and breadth of understanding that comes from transformative leadership? I believe so.
*****
NWP NATIONAL PROGRAMS: BRINGING IT HOME
More than 1,000 teacher-consultants and site leaders participate in National Writing Project national programs every year. When they do, they carry the interests and aspirations of their colleagues with them. But sometimes, it is after the event—when the participant has time to think about the opportunities presented or to share them with his site or colleague—that the deeper purposes for programs emerge: building and sustaining local sites and the teachers they serve. Here, two teacher-leaders reflect on their experiences of adapting and extending national programs back home.
*****
A Writing Retreat Without the Retreat
by Rochelle Ramay
The Northern California Writing Project has been an active participant in many national programs, but we have a particular interest in supporting teachers to contribute to the professional literature. So it was not surprising that when we applied for a minigrant from the National Writing Project Teacher Inquiry Communities Network, our foremost objective was to create a professional writing retreat that provided teachers with a focused block of time carved out of their busy lives. The teachers we wanted to gather together for this retreat represented an array of teaching disciplines: math, home economics, drama, art, social science, and English. Inspired by the NWP Professional Writing Retreats, we thought a traditional retreat format of two nights and three days at a far-off place would be perfect. But as the school year rolled along, we realized that there was no easy way to find three days not already reserved for other responsibilities.
Out of necessity, we decided to structure our retreat without a retreat at all. Nine teachers met on three separate Saturdays—one in January, one in March, and the last one in May—to write about their classroom practices and respond to one another's papers. Charlie Troughton, a social science and English language learner instructor who participated, described the feel of the process:
I wrote for hours that first day, scripting what I thought was a summary masterpiece . . . [but] my draft read like a cold, boring textbook—lifeless and impersonal. [My group] suggested I describe my kids . . . put myself into the classroom, and retell the experience. So I sat and wrote for several more hours before we joined together again for some final feedback on the changes. This time, they informed me, I was on the right track—with my students and me shining through the process rather than the process shading my students and me out of the picture.
What was most wonderful about this retreat format was that between meetings we wrote and revised in preparation for the next meeting. The results of these meetings have given voice to so much that teachers deal with daily. Marleigh Williams, another participant and a home economics teacher, captured this:
I know that what I do is important. I also know that most of my colleagues have no idea what I do in my classroom. I have spent my entire career working to diminish the "stitchin' and stirrin'" stereotype of home economics. For many of my students, the skills learned in the home economics classroom are skills that last a lifetime. Many of my students will not go on to college. They are the "other" students—those for which standardized tests and college entrance exams are not written. Those that often lack motivation and guidance from home. Those that lack models in their lives to teach them the "life skills" that are often taken for granted. We need to recognize them and teach skills that they can use and pass on to future generations.
The impact on our site has shifted the ways we think about professional writing time. Deana Jacoby, an English teacher, reflected:
Writing about the process . . . allowed me to investigate my practices, instructing me in the amount of effort and thinking that goes into writing. . . . Perhaps that is my new understanding; my return to writing might enable me to better understand and instruct my students in their efforts. Hopefully, I will be able to inspire a collaborative feeling with my students rather than a feeling of fear of judgment during the brief time I work with them in their educational odyssey.
We want to create occasions for as many teachers as we can to write about their teaching. Small groups meeting for short bursts of time worked for us. Something else may work for another site. But whatever a site's situation, national programs are a source of ideas, inspiration, and models for local sites.
*****
National Programs: Strands That Help a Site Work
by Vanessa Brown
In 2001, I became the new site director at the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP) just as a massive districtwide restructuring plan was unfolding in the School District of Philadelphia. The restructuring created and implemented new norms that invariably affected every aspect of our site's health. Business has not been as usual since. Fortunately, we recognized early that a careful analysis of our resources—both human and capital—was essential. Many of the most valuable resources, of course, were situated in our own backyard—our membership. But we also looked to the National Writing Project.
We came to understand, as never before, that NWP is not a monolithic structure but rather the sum of its parts. And we drew heavily on many of those parts, among them the Urban Sites Network, Project Outreach Network, the New-Teacher Initiative, the Technology Liaison Project, and the Teacher Inquiry Communities and English Language Learners Networks. Each of these programs, through minigrants, conferences, institutes, and retreats, increased support for new and existing leadership.
I came to think of these many NWP programs as strands in an intricately woven tapestry of many colors, strengths, and textures. The weaving together of these strands allowed our site to become increasingly vibrant. Individually, each of them offered both promise and challenge. But woven together they create a multifaceted resource.
These programs gave us access to minigrants and funds available through special initiatives. In turn, we were able to leverage dollars to start new work that might have gone undeveloped without this support. Following are some of the ways these programs have undergirded PhilWP's efforts to grow new ways of working with teachers in our beleaguered school district.
While we continue to meet after school, we have dramatically increased the number of weekend and online projects we sponsor. Especially helpful have been the focused institutes for national programs such as New-Teacher Initiative, Project Outreach Network, the Technology Liaison Project, and work with the Centre for Social Action. All of these have provided a venue to think outside the enclosure of our own burdens. For instance, a Technology Liaison Project minigrant helped tie together two pieces of work with teachers of English language learners around the use of video, i-movies, and weblogs as tools for collaborative inquiry.
Because we are an urban district, our work with the Urban Sites Network has been particularly key, much as the Rural Sites Network has been for our rural colleagues. There is no question that participation in annual Urban Sites Network conferences and a 2003–2004 Urban Sites Network minigrant award aligned us with other urban educators from whom I, as a new site director, have learned site-management skills related to budgets, staffing, leadership, program development, continuity, urban research, and social action. This minigrant allowed PhilWP to draw together professional development facilitators and coordinators to reflect on work previously done with writing project and non-writing project teachers. It also supported a vehicle for looking deeply at the work of others and contemplating what was applicable to our site in light of districtwide reform.
We drew heavily also on another national program, the National Writing Project at Work monograph series. This series, which is intended to provide sites with useful and creative ideas in performing their basic work, helped us think about the critical nature of building relationships and communities of practice in the school where we have worked this year as part of the district's Comprehensive School Reform. We referred frequently to these monographs as we worked with teachers in this school and in three other schools with which we had partnered. We came to use the phrase "at the elbow" to signify that we wanted to walk beside teachers offering assistance where and when needed. The monograph series helped us do this work.
At a time when many urban writing projects are feeling under siege from the new contexts they face, PhilWP is hopeful. This hope has not come easily. Nonetheless, it sure feels better than the despair we felt three years ago. Where does it come from? Much of our hope comes from the access we have had to the varied strands that are NWP programs and initiatives. These strands create the tapestry that will allow us to thrive.