National Writing Project in
Vermont E-Newsletter
We are teachers who believe in the
power of writing.
March-April 2008—Happy
Poetry Month!
Upcoming
Events
Still Time to
Register for Teachers Who Write!
Spring
2008: The Search Begins for New NWP-VT Managing Director
NWP-VT Leadership Team
Meeting on April 10
Advanced Institute Meets
June 23-27
Updates
2008 Summer Institute Records
Record Applications in March!
Attention! Open Institute Date Change
Opportunities
Because Writing Matters
Conference
More Summer Programs
Organizing
Got an Idea? Apply for a
Minigrant!
NWP Annual Meeting in San
Antonio
Want to Throw Your Two Cents
in the NWP-VT Bucket? Come Join the Leadership Team!
National Poetry Month Slams:
maybe April isnŐt so cruel after all
David Schein Performs MYethiOPIA:
Tales from the AIDS Education Circus
UVM Course: Writing with Style
People
Still Time to Register for Teachers Who Write!
Co-sponsored by NWP-VT, this year Teachers Who Write brings
young-adult novelist Doug Wilhelm and award-winning singer/songwriter Anais
Mitchell to the campus of Vermont College on Friday, May 9. Registration
deadline is May 2, but early registrations are a kindness to all. The $75
registration fee covers all costs, including morning refreshments and a lunch
catered by the New England Culinary Institute. Retired teachers, student
teachers, and ISI Summer Fellows of Ő07 and Ő08 receive a generous discount,
and may register for just $45. Participants have a choice of two workshops from
a menu of ten. For more information, contact geof.hewitt@state.vt.us.
Spring 2008: The Search Begins for New NWP-VT Managing
Director
Patricia McGonegal, founding director of NWP-VT, has announced her
plans to retire as director next spring (could it be that adorable
grandchild?). If you are interested in helping with the search for a new
managing director, please be in touch with search committee chairs, Joyce
Sheehey (jsheehey@verizon.net) and Ed
Darling (edarling@sbschools.net).
NWP-VT Leadership Team Meeting on April 10
The Leadership Team will meet on Thursday, April 10, from 4 p.m.
to 7 p.m. in the NWP-VT office (201 Mann Hall, UVM). Contact sitedirector@nwpvt.org with any
questions.
Advanced Institute Meets June 23-27
Come to the Advanced Institute to help us plan to expand our
successful Study Group program. All year teachers have been meeting in
Colchester, South Burlington, Richmond, Hinesburg, and Washington West, and we
are very encouraged by their work. We hope to enlist many more of you to
co-lead these groups at your own schools or elsewhere. If you or your
administrators are interested, please be in touch with Cate Lamb or Tish McGonegal
(sitedirector@nwpvt.org). The
Advanced Institute will meet June 23-27 in the NWP-VT office (201 Mann Hall,
UVM).
2008 Summer Institute Records Record Applications in
March!
Eighteen applications for the NWPVT Invitational Summer Institute
(ISI) have now been accepted for the 2008 Invitational Summer Institute. Eager
fellows-to-be attended the March 14 group interview already looking like NWP-VT
teacher-writers, and discussed their attitudes toward writing in the classroom.
The ISI leadership team—Julia Hewitt and Geof Hewitt, UVM professor Richard Parent, Ed Darling,
Nelson Jacquay, and Sydney Copp—agree that this year the group of
incoming fellows is exceptionally strong.
The group is eagerly awaiting the overnight orientation session at
Bishop Booth Conference Center on May 16-17. With such a promising start, ISI 2008 (July 7 - 31, with
[mark your calendar!] Visitors' Day scheduled for Wed., July 30) is shaping up to be
the best ever.
Attention! Open Institute Date Change
The dates for the Open Institute on Elementary Reading and Writing
Connections have changed slightly. The half day on July 1 has been canceled.
Here is the skinny:
Credits: 3 - 1 credit = 15 contact hours
Instructor: Jennifer
Lindert and Katie LeFranois
Meeting dates and times: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, June 23-27, June 30
Location: Smilie
Memorial School, Bolton, Vermont
The NWP is stronger than ever, but only because of the leadership
of national and local leaders—like YOU! Read the latest developments in
our funding and achievements on the revamped NWP website:
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/about/press_releases.csp
Because Writing Matters Conference
Looking for some writing-related professional development? Go to
the Because Writing Matters Conference on May 3, 8:30-3:30, in Worcester,
Massachusetts (a location immortalized by Elizabeth Bishop). Sponsored by the
Massachusetts Writing Project, this conference will offer strands on the
transition to college, family literacy, teaching with technology, teacher
inquiry, and responding to literature. The poet X. J. Kennedy will be the
keynote speaker. If that doesnŐt tempt you, maybe one of his new poems will:
A Mammoth Surprise
By
X. J. Kennedy
Down the trunk of an
elephant, Daredevil Jed
With incredible speed
took a slide on his sled
At a time when that
pachyderm, lunching on hay,
Was happily tucking a
bundle away.
Off that doubled-up
nose-hose, poor Jed shot the
chutes---
Blubbery brutes have
such rubbery snoots.
For details, visit the Massachusetts Writing Project on the web:
http://www.masswritingproject.org/index.php?pr=Spring_Conference_2008
More Summer Programs Organizing
Additional opportunities are blossoming for NWP-VT work this
summer and into the fall. We have requests for Young Writers programs (one
needs staffing asap to get publicity going!), and teacher programs. Some
programs are in conjunction with the Educational Service Agencies across the
state. Watch your ESA newsletters and websites for these opportunities. Be in
touch with Tish, sitedirector@nwpvt.org,
or Cate, clwriter@verizon.net, if you
are interested in helping with any of these programs.
Got an Idea? Apply for a Minigrant!
Write a grant to support a program! A minigrant could provide the extra
boost you need to get your idea off the ground. State and regional networks of NWP sites are invited to
apply for minigrants to support efforts to strengthen writing in their schools. The deadline is July 1, 2008. See the
NWP website for more information.
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/projects/66
NWP Annual Meeting in San Antonio
Plan for San Antonio—It is never too early! The NWP holds
two National Meetings a year: the Spring Meeting, later this week, and the
Annual Meeting in November. This year the Annual Meeting is in San Antonio. The
Annual Meetings are a great opportunity to meet writing teachers from across
the country and to think about writing instruction in a larger sense than we
usually do in our own classrooms, schools, and communities. We really like to
include our Teacher Consultants in this meeting every year, though we know cost
is a challenge. This spring, as budgets get formed, why not ask your school to
help defray this expense by appropriating some of the travel money for this
great opportunity? TCs who have attended this meeting in the past rave about
the workshops and events there, and come back with new energy for the work of
our site, as well as ideas they can share at their schools and work out in
their own classrooms. Check out
the NWP website for more information.
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/08am/home.csp
Want to Throw Your Two Cents in the NWP-VT Bucket? Come
Join the Leadership Team!
Apply to join our NWP-VT Leadership Team. We will be looking for
new members of our Leadership Team this spring—with all our new
activities, it is more important than ever to have a full representation of our
Teacher-Consultants. Contact Tish (sitedirector@nwpvt.org),
Geof (geof.hewitt@state.vt.us),
Julia (Julia.Hewitt@uvm.edu), Cynthia
(creyes@uvm.edu) or Cate (clwriter@verizon.net) for more
information on this opportunity.
National Poetry Month Slams: maybe April isnŐt so cruel
after all
For all slams: Sign up at 6:50. Slam at 7:00
April 9 (Wednesday): Waterfront Theatre at Main Street Landing, 1
Main St., Burlington (with featured poet Kim Jordan)
April 14 (Monday): Harwood Union High School, 458 VT Rte. 100, So.
Duxbury
April 25 (Friday): Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main St.,
Montpelier
David Schein Performs MYethiOPIA: Tales from the AIDS
Education Circus
Burlington native and award-winning actor and writer David Schein,
a founding member of BerkeleyŐs Blake Street Hawkeyes, will present solo
performances of MYethiOPIA in Burlington at Contois Auditorium on April 18th,
and in Hardwick, at Hardwick Town House, on April 21st. Written, directed and
performed by Schein, MYethiOPIA is based on his experiences forming and
directing the Awassa AIDS Education Circus (now called One Love Theater) with a
troupe of street kids in a town in Southern Ethiopia. MYethiOPia revolves
around a key event: when the AIDS Education Circus is nearly trampled to death
by an over eager crowd and a condom riot is narrowly avoided. The show probes
ScheinŐs own conflicts bringing Culture to one of the oldest cultures in the
world, and exposes the unavoidable colonial aspects of working in a developing
country – where the cost of ScheinŐs sneakers could have bought three
monthŐs food for a family. The performance is a benefit for the Awassa
ChildrenŐs Project, a non-profit organization founded by Schein in Chicago
which supports two NGOs in Awassa, an orphanage for children who have lost
their parents from AIDS and the One Love AIDS/HIV Awareness Theater, which,
since 2001, has performed for hundreds of thousands of people in markets and
refugee camps throughout Ethiopia.
Contois Auditorium, April 18, 8PM: Tickets: $15, Students $5.00;
Info/Res 802-862-9616, ablackmer@burlington.edu
Hardwick Town House, April 21: 7PM Tickets: $7, students, $5.00,
Info/Res 802-472-3709, chuckmeese@vtlink.net
Contact/Information/Interview: David Schein, 716-640-4639, dafschein@gmail.com
UVM Course: Writing with Style
If you have some free time at the end of May and want an
opportunity to work on your writing style, this course could be for you! UVM
professor Andrew Barnaby will offer Writing with Style (ENGS 095 Z1) during the
last two weeks of May (5/19-5/30)
from 10 am to 2 pm.
Course Description: An intensive writing course focused on
helping students develop their ability to write in complete, complex-compound
sentences, to compose coherent paragraphs, and to incorporate fluid transitions
between sentences and paragraphs so as to sustain the flow of an idea or
argument. The course is primarily intended for students who know how to write
but who sense that they could write more elegantly, more eloquently, and more
effortlessly. Daily writing projects will include free-writes, critical
summaries of class readings (on a wide range of topics), comparison and
contrast pieces, descriptions, and different kinds of analytical and persuasive
pieces. (We will be working on
short pieces because our concern will not be with the structure of a
full-length piece but with the composition of the sentences and paragraphs
– a micro as opposed to a macro consideration of writing.) This is not a
creative writing course, though some of the assignments will incorporate
creative with critical thinking.
Memoir: The Landscape and Language of Memory is a graduate course
being offered June 23-26 in Middlebury by NWP-VT TC Alison Dayton and Marianne
Doe. Information about the course can be found at www.memoirvt.org. Alison Dayton and Marianne
Doe have been teaching Memoir at Middlebury Union High School for nine
years. From this they developed
Writing and Teaching Memoir, a four-day summer graduate course and a one-day
workshop they presented at the National Convention for NCTE and at Trimble
Technical High School in Fort Worth, Texas. Numerous requests for the course and workshop have led these
educators to develop a new summer course and workshops for teachers interested
in non-fiction writing and reading.
Experienced teachers with Masters Degrees, Alison and Marianne have been
collaborating on their practice for more than a decade. For more information,
contact Marianne at mdoe@acsu.k12.vt.us.
Send us
your updates, personal and professional! We like to hear how NWPers spend their
time when theyŐre writing and when theyŐre notÉemail newsletter@nwpvt.org.
Contact
UsÉ
Visit our website at http://www.nwpvt.org.
Address: 201 Mann Hall, 208 Colchester Ave., UVM, Burlington, VT
05405
Telephone: (802)656-3935
Email: sitedirector@nwpvt.org
Director: Patricia McGonegal