Notes from National Writing Conference - Dr. Sekeres

Books and articles to read and other resources or examples:
Cochran-Smith & Lytle: Beyond Certainty
Eight Beliefs about Culturally Diverse Learners: Conference on English Education
Nieto: What Keeps Teachers Going
Weinbaum, et al: Teaching as Inquiry
Ladson-Billings: Dreamkeepers
http://charlestownhighschools.wikispaces.com
www.nwp.org: click on research for information that demonstrates the effect of having a TC for a teacher on student ahievement
Saginaw Teacher Study Group monograph
Ask Vermont (or possibly San Diego) for bibliography of articles on facilitating study groups that they used in their meetings.
Pauline Gibbons: Text that holds us all together
The “muddle” article (contact speaker)
Susan Scott: Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time
· five disfunctions of the team

People to contact:
Fellow in central Utah who has 25 administrators coming to a one-day (on Wed.) presentation on NWP and their site in particular. He said he would send me their promotion information and agenda. I have his card at home and will follow through with that request.

Ideas:
Make a classroom poster to keep up in the classroom from the realizations you come to in your teacher study groups
Writing out of communities
Advanced Institutes in which TCs research questions of their choice
Show teachers up front what the plans you have look like…expected products
Do inquiry with out of school partners—could be businesses, community workers, parents, etc.
Spend more time in ISI applying what we do to the classroom…don’t assume everyone is an expert teacher already
Do a piece on group inquiry…as opposed to individual…in ISI to foster PD teams
Silent conversation: everyone has his or her own color marker

Musings:
One of the presenters said, bring your thoughts to a close…meaning, what you wre writing. I thought that was odd terminology, and would not want to suggest to my students that they close their thoughts.

If a school is defined as 95% minority, how is that possible? If 95% of the kids are African American, they are hardly the minority! What a peculiar use of language…even when you (the children) are the majority, you are still considered the minority.

Quotes that made me think about being careful not to assume that my ideology is a) the only one worth considering, b) the only right approach, or c) shared by everyone else in the room.
“They became teachers adjusting their practice as they went through the process, which is exactly what you want.”
“Some principals don’t care. They don’t get the idea of student-driven inquiry in the classroom.”
“There was a lot of resistance in the history department. It took ‘em a while, but they got it [student-driven inquiry].

My first workshop in Thursday was Developing Ourselves: Teacher Inquiry as Professional Development

We were asked to write on three questions: why did we come? What did we expect? How will we apply what we learn?
The workshop was divided into four round tables. The different sites approached inquiry as PD in different ways. I listened to a pair form Missouri: a teacher and guidance counselor in an elementary school. The teacher was the only African American teacher at her school initially. She was a “seasoned” action researcher, and wanted to bring together other seasoned researchers and novices, across a range of jobs in the school, to create a teacher study group on social justice.
To begin our session, they gave each person a different prompt to write from, which were the 8 beliefs about linguistically and culturally diverse learners from the Conference of English Education.
Their process: they obtained a mini-grant from the rural sites network to bring together the group of teachers. The mini-grant paid for books and a very modest stipend…wouldn’t say how much…maybe didn’t understand the question. They were all volunteer: a variety of gender, positions, and had approval for their meeting through the principal and central office. They met once a month. 9 people began, 6 stayed.
They read Nieto: What Keeps Teachers Going
Weinbaum, et al: Teaching as Inquiry
Ladson-Billings: Dreamkeepers
They call teacher inquiry a peaceful, quiet reform movement
They discussed first, self-reflection, the ethics of research, the process of questioning in community
Began with a self-awareness piece on diversity and equity. Each person had her/his own question dealing with writing and social justice and the ethics of research???
Took a year to study the process. The second year they will do the studies. They were also building leadership
Probing and clarifying questions
Activities were often what they did in classrooms…another layer of research from the site on the progress of the group

The other three round tables were variations on: a yearlong whole school study group, mandatory, run by NWP site or a teacher inquiry group with mentor teacher and pre-service teacher partners


My second workshop on Thursday was called Advanced Institutes to Support Inservice

The Vermont site was inspired by the Saginaw Teacher Study Group monograph. They got $5,000 for a rural sites grant and used it for stipends for teachers and principals. They set up a three-year project to 1)expand the work of the site…to five new schools, and 2) to build new leaders…TCs facilitate groups.
They meet twice together for dinners…their advanced institutes pay for meals…the advanced institute is for teachers who want to facilitate study groups in their schools
They also sent the principal letters asking for support from them.
They meet 5 times a year, from 3-6 pm.

I actually heard the San Diego site talk last year, but I didn’t clue in right away. They make the assumption in ISI that the fellows will continue through the year…they present it as part of the opportunity, and have good attendance. Their program is to meet 5 times a year on a Saturday, Oct., Nov., Dec., Jan., and Feb. They call it an Adv. Inst., and meet from 8:30 to 9:00 to eat and visit, 9-11 with Independent Study Groups with a team of facilitators, then 11-12 all three goups together. They collaborate with protocols (google protocol) and crate continuity across the 3 gorups.
Pauline Gibbons: Text that holds us all together is their mentor text
They have three groups, and each group has a study question, which change each year based on input from everyone, but the leaders decide and advertise the groups. Then, they have three themes that all the groups consider and which are the subject of the last hour of the day: ELL; multiculturalism; and 21st century literacies. Then, they have a separate Advanced Institute in the afternoon from 103. These are not such that you have to come to all five, although the mornings are a commitment to all five.

Saturday morning breakfast with AWP:

General notes:
Legislators go to schools day; match them with TC for a day. They are doing it in Dec., asking them to read something they’ve written or a book to children…which didn’t sound like a “day”. Prelude to asking for money!!

PLU: professional learning unit. Something administrators have to get, or teachers who want to be administrators. Can offer these with our “administrators’ institute” may get more. You can charge fees. We should ask Instruction Leadership people for interns’ names. They especially are wanting PLUs that deal with diversity.

A direct donation to LWP through our COE donation mechanisms…one site was founded in 1981, so was asking for $19.81. Didn’t we do something like that???

Appreciative inquiry: phone survey asking for donations after asking for quotes on LWP. Serves two purposes…Open enrollment; partner with inservice who pay, but shows at match. Ask Robin at Wiregrass about it. What they do…I missed it.

Very successful cookbook…recipes with family stories. Think this was SunBelt.

Meeting in late Feb/early March of AWP to do this on more organized basis. Overnight at Jack State.

Recommended only two people to go to Washington, D.C. in April. Need to know who is going ASAP as Lisa Williams sets up all the legislative appointments before we get there.