A Plain White Index Card (Day 1)

Woo-hoo! I have an audience! Hi, Kim & Susan, and thanks for your comments.

Students often think that the first day of a college class is supposed to be nothing more than handing out the syllabus, discussing assignments, pointing out policies--then you go early. You don't actually START the class.

The CTWP Summer Institute disagrees.

Day one, minute one: writing.
Our task was to first write about ourselves, describing physical attributes, cultural heritage, and national identity. Then write about a partner, using the same categories. After sharing writings with the partner, we then discussed discomfort level, what we left out, observational writing, etc. It is surpisingly difficult to look at someone that closely and directly while they are looking back at you! The activity ended, as almost every writing activity will, with some large-group sharing--the author's chair.

Taking Care of Business
Of course, a first day does have to deal with logistics. We signed up for books talks (a 3-5 minute presentation on the professional book we read for the Institute), log keeping (each person will keep the day's minutes and create some kind of document--creativity welcomed--to hand out the next day--I will definitely save these), and breakfast (in pairs, twice during the SI). Later in the day we formed response groups, a complicated process involving index cards of various colors representing the grade levels. I, the lone college representative, got a plain old white one. Elementary teachers got purple.

We discussed demos--this is one of the key assignments for NWP SIs, and the "teachers teaching teachers" model. Essentially, the demonstration is a presentation of some approach, strategy, or method for teaching writing. The Institute leaders coach each presenter a couple of days before their turn. It's an extensive presentation (about 2 hours each) in which the teacher describes the strategy, connects it to theory, and walks the group through the strategy. The group role plays the age of the targeted students during this part of the demo, and we go in order of grade level. So on Thursday, I get to be a kindergartner. Maybe I can have a purple card then. :)

The First Tears
Liz told us at the Pre-Institute meeting in May that the SI sometimes ends up as a therapy session. We may need to write Kleenex into the grant.

One of the participants read a passage from Georgia Heard's Writing Toward Home, called "Querencia," which described the importance of a place to write, a place that creates a sense of safety and well-being. Of course we wrote in response, describing our place, then some shared their writings. Several were moved to tears as they described places and their associated memories, both good and bad. I didn't exactly cry when I read mine, but could have--I wrote about lack of such a place, because I'm not sure I actually feel safe when writing. Writing=anxiety.

Discussion: The Neglected "R"
SI is not just therapy, it also involves getting down and dirty with writing pedagogy issues. We read the Executive Summary of the Writing Commission's report, "The Neglected 'R'" and discussed it following a protocol called "Save the Last Word" which involves choosing and reading short passages out loud to the group, then discussing them in turn, with the chooser getting the last word. The common theme in my group was that writing is too often seen by students (and other teachers, frankly) as a separate subject, rather than as a foundational literacy skill. For some reason, no one seems to have a problem seeing reading in this light, but there is some sort of block when it comes to writing. We also shared strategies on the issue of parental involvement, especially in Title I school districts. And then, of course, wrote (5-minute reflection).

Some Observations
Textbooks for summer institute: CTWP doesn't have one, using individual books and materials distributed in class as a basis for discussion. Other writing projects do have textbooks, or some combination of textbooks & individual readings. A big decision we will have to make, since what will choose to do will influence other choices about how we run the institute.

Room: CTWP has a room that is essentially dedicated to the Summer Institute. It is good-sized room, nicely arranged with tables & chairs (all moveable & configurable), small refrigerator, microwave, tables along one wall for food (always available), computer/projector set up, a COW (laptop cart), and a rolling bookshelf for the resource library. They also have a nifty water cooler that dispenses both hot and cold water (can we write one of these into our grant?). Marsha had mentioned the possibility of us getting one of the FRC rooms. I wonder if we could get a room for the SI, and use it during the semesters for English 3360? Whatever we end up with, we need to think about how to make it fully conducive to writing and discussion. It needs to be a model writing classroom, as close to that "safe place for writing" as we can get.

Library: we have Mapuana's list--I'd like to formalize this a little bit and use it as a basis to create our own library. CTWP also has copies of relevant journals available in the room, plus some more popular-0riented writing mags, such as Writer's Digest.

Final Thought
You can probably tell by the length here that I'm psyched. The group of teachers at the CTWP SI are terrific--I've learned so much from them, even on the first day. And I even managed to work up the nerve to read out loud a fairly personal writing. So far, it is as advertised-- a supportive atmosphere that honors teachers both as professional educators and as writers.

Not that I really had doubts before, but there is no question that we need to bring NWP to Corpus. It's as obvious as big purple letters on a plain white index card.