The E-Anthology as a Resource in the Summer Institute
Date: 2005
Summary: Over the past few years, sites have shared how they successfully integrated the E-Anthology into the daily work of the summer institute.
The E-Anthology is a national writers' response group that is more useful if it is integrated into the daily work of the summer institute. Over the past few years, sites have shared how they have successfully used it, and we'd like to offer you some of those ideas. Some will work for your site; others won't. You decide.
- Require a certain number of postings over the course of the summer institute. Having a minimum requirement helps build participants' confidence to share their work with a larger audience. It also provides another kind of authentic online communication experience in addition to email.
- Require a certain number of responses over the course of the summer institute. Responding to writing is as much a part of teaching writing as encouraging the original piece. Responding to writing in the summer institute provides a friendly opportunity to hone that skill.
- Print out a posting along with its responses to share with the participants of the summer institute. Possible questions for discussion:
- What do you think the author wants to convey?
- Are the responses helpful to the author?
- How would you have responded?
- Invite the directors of the summer institute as well as the director of the site to contribute to the E-Anthology. Seeing directors take risks by going public with their work encourages a spirit of collegiality.
- Rotate posting to A Day in the Life among all participants of the summer institute, giving everyone a chance to experience writing for an archive that is accessible to a national audience. This calls attention to writing for a different audience.
- Encourage participants to write about their challenges teaching writing for the Classroom Matters forum and encourage them to respond to others.
- Distribute information on publishing opportunities for professional articles. The Teacher Inquiry Communities (TIC) Network has excellent resources:
- Tips for Publishing: Bringing Classroom Practices, Reflections, and Research to Print
- Publishing and Research Resources for Teachers
- Personal portfolios: Encourage participants to review their portfolios to determine if there are pieces they would like to revise or develop further. They may also want to consider sharing a piece with their students when they return to school.
- Site portfolios: Writing project site directors will find this a rich resource illuminating the work of the summer institute. Not only will they be able to see the level of activity of individual participants, they will also get a window into the interests of new teacher-consultants. Directors will most likely want to share site portfolio information with summer institute facilitators and other site leaders and may also find the site portfolio useful for the online NWP Application for Continued Funding.
- Maintain a writers' group as a continuity program after the summer institute has ended. There are many resources to support this work after the E-Anthology has closed.