Wednesday, 7/15

Katie emerged for her final leg of her triathlon ready to go, taking us along on for her presentation in Reader Response Journals. The handouts on the need for guiding our students through notetaking and listening skills rang true, particularly in light of the info Katie found connecting cheating with note-taking ignorance. I especially enjoyed the list of the 10 Bad Listening Habits (talking about you, Luis). Ronnie's suggestion from last week of found-poetry-from-boring-speakers and Katie's anecdote of the strategies of a minister's wife's strategies entertained. More good information to know and to pass along to my English and my Study Skills students, in particular. I'll also try to keep in mind Ruie's comment of an audience's tendency to "focus to the light" (the overhead, LCD), although it will make me think of my students as deer.



Paige reminded us of our moral obligation to limit OUR talk before filling us in on new personality categories: the teddy bear, the magnifying glass, the slinky, and the paper clip. Discussion of Louise Rosenblatt's reader response theory led to Ron's clarification between efferent (for the info) and aesthetic (past the facts to the emotions) reading.

Katie then led us into a look into the the lyrics of Pink Floyd's song "Wish You Were Here". Her student's performance of the song for his deployed father must have been quite an emotional moment. Our interpretations grew after picking apart key words, growing into a dialogue within our daybooks. I thought of using these lyrics while discussing the role of nostalgia in One Hundred Years of Solitude with my seniors. My search for cheap daybooks is on now!

New words so far:
4-Panel Thingy (scientific name, dialecta responsus)
SLANT (Sit up, Lean forward, and Not Talk)
Anchor chart

After the break, Ruie guided us toward time to begin writing our personal narratives, making distinction between a memory piece and a personal narrative. Our personal narratives will cover larger spans of time and consider some point/moral/epiphany/insight. Reminding us that it certainly need not be somber, Ruie read a former fellow's amusing narrative of the humbling realization of a daughter (and bad driver).

Other notes for our narrative:
think of an era 1st (post-12 yrs old, probably)
then--consider moments of
trial & tribulation
deep forgiveness
innocence
loss

There need not be a big, profound theme--it can be quiet, a sudden insight into the nature of our own character.

And so, we were off to write (and struggle) and lunch.

Upon our return, Jessica presented her look into involving combining literacy activities through a visual arts perspective.

Two points of interest early--

• The use of the term composition in considering each creative act
• Her presentation's title, "the itch to make dark marks on white paper," taken from a Picasso quote, of the urge artists (and via Jessica) and writers take part in through the creative process

After examining a portion of a 1930 Time article discussing Picasso's career, we wrote a letter to Time's editor in response to his painting Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher to judge whether it is good or bad art, providing reasons and support. Tanya's letter called into question the receipt tapestry's artistic merits as well. The cereal box sketchbook ideas and instruction-writing activity were more great materials included in her handouts. Others chiming in included Ronnie's vocabulary grid with a new word, Similar words/roots identified, Definition, and Picture of the word sounded useful, as did Ron's one-pager description of a quadrant in which 4 scenes of a narrative add to an analysis of how each scene (with quotes) contribute to setting, tone, character, etc.

http://www.clemusart.com/exhibcef/barcelona/html/5036514.html
The interpretation here seems to have been taken verbatim from my letter...

After Jessica's presentation, Ruie poured on the learning, taking us through a collocation exercise. Some were able to whip up connections easily to nouns in our early drafts; others strained. I kneaded a break.

After it, I remember thinking I was sad that Heather, Karen, Catherine, and Tanya weren't around for Ronnie's Roundtable Chat. I had no idea our afternoon would offer the opportunity to hear a discussion from the likes of Annie Dillard, Annie Lamott, Georgia Heard, and Stephen King. They came to examine up the apprehension that writer's often feel, highlighting the courage writing takes, the detriment of requiring control in knowing where you're going with your writing, and the requirement to just write. They shared hanging onto rituals, letting go of fears, and releasing something in your writing to which you're clinging. The CAWPers returned just after our celebrities left to lead a discussion into the implications of writing apprehension in the classroom using an article from English Journal. Very entertaining and effective.

After getting spiffied up, many CAWPers met at Jibarra for a fantastic meal and insights from Australian literacy luminary Brian Cambourne. The Malbec was tasty, the fajitas yummy, the company fun.

Tuesday, July 14 from Cathy Horne

The day began with Ruie modeling how to make group poems. Using the sentence starter below we each wrote a long sentence to answer the starter.
I remember…
This frame works well for students because they start with long sentences and then learn to revise. Ronnie volunteered to take our lines about memories and edit into a group poem.

Research about feedback and evaluation-using rubrics was presented by Ruie next.
We discussed how teachers use computers with comment features to respond more and more personally, and not mess up their copy as Paige explained. (Make tracking marks also.)
Comments by teachers have a powerful impact on writing development.

Other things that influence writers and feedback:
• Unattractive names receive lower marks. More common names receive higher marks. Used same papers and changed the names to do this research.
• Studies show that we should: Be specific. Start with a complete sentence that begins positively.
• In a 51 teacher study, in elementary, social behavior influenced grading more than content.
• What errors bother teachers the most: not content but conventions and sentence structure.
• Don’t punish for invented spellings.
• When you make a comment you are creating fears, so students figure out what the teacher values or dislikes, and may not try new features in their writing. Error free writing is not necessarily good.
• Evaluation should be a learning tool, so that teacher’s instruction helps with improving writing.
• Best to keep pointing out the good. Teachers mostly do deductive: have the rule, correct the incorrect ones. Inductive is better such that you look at words and have students give the rule.
• Official “Crib” sheet…questions to be asked plus Ruie’s questions. Then work in groups to study the answers to the questions
• Study what do teachers value when grading papers: content, organization first and the conventions.
• Intensive marking is no better than moderate marking in grading for eventual outcomes.
• 6 yr study scoring papers that only were different in style, not content. Flowery language received better scores than clear, direct simple sentences.
• Effects of feedback: 2/3 of comments are negative; 7 from 1000 comments were positive.
• Don’t wait until the end of the assignment to give feedback, but have students email you a paragraph with which they are struggling and ask a question about it.

5 Goals for evaluating using rubrics:
1. Teachers need to protect themselves against their own ibases.
2. Teachers need to make their internal criteria overt so that students don’t have to second-guess;
3. teachers need to use language that children understand.Criteria should fit the task and genre of writing
4.Teachers need to help students internalize evaluation criteria so that they become peer and self-valuators.
5. Need to create a public record so that students are accountable for their own growth.

Handouts of rubrics given by Ruie with variety of purposes.

Characteristics of 5 passages:
#1 voice, descriptive language, looks like a clown, all inadequate in narrative, specificity of language, opportunity to elaborate, made me laugh, organization does not have a topic sentence. Last sentence has comparison and best sentence structure of the paragraph.
#5 voice, more sophisticated, more of a story, is elaborated in second paragraph about a family story. Has narrative as example, has most sophisticated sentence structure
#2 Gets off tract and needs to tell more about family. Last sentence is his most sophisticated sentence structure.
Expert listeners:
1. What does the research say about how teachers do mark papers, as compared t what they know to do?
Bias based on names, if a student has experience similar to teacher may get better grade. Also social behavior, if like the student better, get better grade. If topic is unpleasant to teacher, there could be bias.
2. What are the effects of names on students? Names carry meaning for the teacher and bias. Be fair and use criteria.
3. What are some data from research about the kinds and numbers of teacher markings on student papers? 2/3 from negative point of view. Start with positive. Makes it easier to ftake the negative.
4. What suggestions do you have for making comments on papers?
5. What does research say is/are the most effective ways to evaluate student writing?

Technology discussion:
See notes
Interact site: blog used to interact with parents

Margaret Price: The Huddle Game
Recorder, writer, manager, and speaker…only speaker can talk to teacher
Writer records responses, recorder writes on the board.
The game continued through multiple rounds as we developed super sentences. Margaret presented several other ideas for engaging students in writing.

Sharing of Childhood Memories
Katie’s cat
Darius’ team selection
Julie- Saving Cathy swimming story
Amy Kay-Broken Conspiracy broken finger story

Week one - one sentence summaries

One Sentence Summaries of CAWP 09 - Week One
Beginning with first-day-of-school eagerness, the CAWP participants & instructors jumped into a week full of genuine inquisitiveness and camaraderie immersed in various writing exercises, ending with an intention to feel just as eager to come next Monday night to begin week 2. Melissa Hamm

Beginning with childhood memory drafts the Capital Area Writing Project spent time using web 2.0 technology tools, writing new found poetry structures, and ended by learning more about revised writing assessments in North Carolina. Darius Horton

Beginning with Tuesday and building through Friday, the CAWP participants performed a myriad of activities including, presenting lessons on writing, posting getting-to-know-you activities, bio-ing our lives, daybooking, maneuvering through tech sites, researching writing types, penciling in expectations, diving into poetry, wordle-ing, Wiggs-ing, Buckner-ing, Bell-ing, eating homemade goodies in between, and ultimately, for my personal purposes, learning to fall in love with writing all over again. Tanya Watson

During the first week of CAWP participates learned about various technology tools, wrote and shared childhood memories while various speakers doted the week with a smorgasbord of poetry, presentations, and an international perspective on writing. Margaret Price

Beginning with alliterative adjectives Tuesday morning, the CAWP wrote, revised, and responded to various types of writing, poetry, and technology, and ended the week with a reflection of our very intense, yet satisfying efforts.
Leigh Ann Lane

Beginning with alliterations on Tuesday morning, the CAWP plumbed childhood memories, challenged our knowledge of instructional technology, consumed vast quantities of caffeine and calories, revised our understanding of revision, waxed poetic on poetry, and studied curriculum Kiwi-style; all while learning from each other through presentation and fellowship.
Heather Lowry

July 10, 2009 CAWP

July 10, 2009 CAWP
At the bottom of my day book page I see in big letters “BLOG – JULY 10th!” as if the gargantuan letters will somehow leap forth to pound this reminder into my head. It is Friday, and a scrambled brain washed down with a large coffee is my breakfast. The morning begins with an hour of practice on Voice-thread and Photo Story. I decide to use a scaffold poem from the day before set to images borrowed, with proper credit given, from Google. The sound of my voice is strange as I check my seventeen second clips for reasons to be embarrassed. All words are pronounced correctly, all images accounted for; even if the dancing guy tenderly caressing the Bud Light could’ve chosen a better dance partner.

I notice Justine and Tanya flitting from table to laptop cart. From this and their matching purple and black outfits I zone back in to prepare mentally for their presentation on Found Poetry. At this point Justine is telling us they in fact did not coordinate their outfits. Tanya slings a shawl about her shoulders, strutting, sashaying with her hips and words, telling us that we must see beyond our preconceptions. The shawl can be just a shawl, or an exotic veil, an African queen’s coronet, or a sassy waitress’ apron. Her New Orleans charm is thick and inviting like hot chocolate made from cream. Katrina never stood a chance.

In Found Poetry, Justine picks up to say, selecting poignant words or phrases from existing and relevant texts enables the students to slide into a poetry unit with confidence. They are gleaning from an already existent text and need not produce any words, ideas, or themes on their own. This enables the student to learn the structure of poetry without becoming intimidated. I see a clip of the Simpsons pop up and grow increasingly excited. Justine makes mixed medium art, believes education is the new civil rights movement, and likes the Simpsons! We may have to forgive her Yankeedom.

The steps of Found Poetry include reading an entire excerpt, marking the words or phrases that stand out in some way to the reader, and using only those selections in a new poem. A true found poem uses the found words in order from the first found to the last. The poet does not need to use all the found words, just the ones that make sense in an order. Listing the found words on a separate sheet may help some learners organize but is not necessary. Also, the new found poem does not need to refer back thematically to the original piece. Excerpts for found poetry can include articles, poems, speeches, graffiti, letters, or even street signs. Found poetry can ease a student’s reservations about poetry and creating an original work, can be used as a hook into a new poetry unit, as a summary tool, or even given to show theme in a particular work. Ronnie suggested that found poetry is reminiscent of Dada poems, named after the Dada movement in art, in which words are cut out individually, jumbled about in an envelope, and pulled out one by one with a limit of how many are pulled. The student then makes sense of the words pulled by arranging those words into a new poem.

Dr. Ron allowed us to embrace our inner child by participating in a tracing and coloring activity with a “get-to-know-you” spin. After tracing one hand, we added our goals, concerns, things we are proud of, accomplishments, objectives, and talents inside the hand. On each of the five fingers we placed one of our life roles. I am jealous of the Meredith sisterhood at my table, all of whom trace their black Meredith rings on their hands.

Melissa’s presentation rounds out our day. She begins by making us jealous and woozy by her use of the document camera. Inconspicuously I add “document camera” to my “things to beg principal for” list. The presentation centered on an incident Melissa had encountered with her elementary school in regards to the 4th grade writing assessment. The butterfly prompt we were shown was her school’s initial practice prompt, but it was incredibly vague. Melissa laughed as she recalled the hundred different ways the children wrote from the prompt and how unprepared the teachers felt to properly and concisely grade this assessment. Though it took four days of incredibly hard work and focus, the school produced a new prompt through collaborative effort. Even the PE teacher helped! The new prompt and rubric were more focused, written in more child friendly language, and more enforceable. More importantly than knowing the rubric guidelines, students must understand those guidelines. Once understood, the teacher should model a writing assignment using the prompt and rubric; only then should teachers ask the students to write to a prompt. This progression proved successful in Melissa’s school.
Happy weekend y’all!! - from Katie

Thursday @ CAWP 7.9.2009

Along with their laptops & writing materials, the 2009 CAWP participants & presenters came to class bearing gifts. While the room was not completely, everyone was busy working in some way – engaging conversations about when assignments are due, if things are actually assignments, how much more time there is to procrastinate, & of course plenty of “shop talk.” While we did not start the day off following the agenda, participants were very productive; this is a huge difference in adult learners & early childhood learners.

Small groups scattered around Poe Hall when Ruie realized that we were getting started late. The budding authors read aloud their pieces about childhood memories as others listened intensely to offer their own opinions.

A short few moments later, the whole group reconvened in our humble abode to listen to a guest speaker. Dr. Sally Buckner presented many wonderful ideas about poetry instruction in her talk, A Smörgåsbord of Poetry Writing Activities. As any great teacher, Dr. Buckner came to class ready to teach us, while we sat eager to learn. She challenged us to write several different types of poems from frames & even enticed several participants to share their poems. Dr. Buckner was a true southern delight!

After a round of applause, the community of educators joined in fellowship over a potluck lunch shared with Dr. Buckner, as well as Ms. Vinetta Bell, an ELA consultant at DPI.

After everyone loosened their belts a notch, CAWPers participated in a presentation by our kiwi-friend, Ronnie Davey. Wearing a lovely pair of jandel earrings, Ronnie got our attention with information about the literacy curriculum & assessments approved by the national Ministry of Education of New Zealand. Between presenter & the audience members many comparisons were made to writing instruction & assessment in North Carolina public schools.

To end our first Thursday of the summer sessions, participants of CAWP continued their collaborative efforts within their small groups to work out further plans for upcoming topic presentations. These are sure to give all participants a new perspective on writing, as each is working diligently to become more successful at the task &/or love of writing!

Reporting from the Revered Campus of NC State University

On July 8, the Capital Area Writing Project held an educational institute at Poe Hall. In attendance were more than 15 well-heeled participants, as well as distinguished professors and guests from as far away as New Zealand. The always popular event began with a delightful reception hour where coffee and chocolate chip coffee cake were served.

Ms. Catherine Wiggs, known among CAWP participants as Complicated Kate, kicked off the day’s activities with a “Starter” related to her previous lesson on Reader Response Journals. She used fabulous Post-it posters, a favorite tool, to demonstrate five types of starters. Ms. Wiggs, who was wearing a striking shade of purple, was caught blushing when Dr. Ruie Pritchard added “4 panel thingy” to the “Composing Vocabulary” list.

Following Ms. Wigg’s presentation, Dr. Donna Morrow of New Zealand, in green stripes and a matching green necklace, introduced the guests to Wordle. Everyone was charmed by the wordle of Pride and Prejudice, despite a slight snafu resulting in a mysteriously purple projection screen. Guests experimented with wordle and brainstormed potential classroom uses.

The guests dispersed to meet in groups concerning their topic presentations. Upon returning, Dr. Pritchard provided information about the process of revision. Her elegant remarks, not to mention her long necklace of pearly shell buttons, intrigued all in attendance. She noted the important distinction between revision and mere editing. Dr. Ron Honeycutt, one of the few gentlemen in attendance, contributed his “DARE to Revise” concept.

Guests lunched independently. Shortly after lunch, Dr. Morrow and Ms. Megan Poole began the final presentation of the day. Ms. Poole wore pink. The techno-savvy duo demonstrated two useful image and audio programs: Voicethread and Photo Story. As Dr. Morrow noted, anybody who is anybody uses “multimodal ways of communicating.” As the day drew to a close, the participants looked forward to the next day’s activities.

July 7th Summary

CAWPers trickled in this morning to begin the day with coffee and conversation and found Room 102 changed. Instead of the familiar U-shaped configuration, the tables were split up and spread around the room for small group gathering. On one wall, the Composing Vocabulary poster offered points to remember when writing, such as using the "Happy Hook" to hook on to a previously mentioned idea and Tak(ing) OPPORTUNITY to Elaborate or tell more. Five other posters lined the window wall with topics for preliminary self-assessment using 1 to 10 ratings and descriptive smileys along the range.

Ronnie Davey & Donna Morrow introduced themselves and New Zealand with Ronnie’s performance of a traditional mehe (sp?) greeting in one of the country’s 3 languages, followed by anecdotes sprinkled with vocabulary and humor, and concluding with a wyata (sp?) duet. They also gave us gifts of Cadbury chocolate marshmallow fish and a shell apiece from the beach.

Using “Alliterative Adjectives,” we created a name web to help the newcomers (along with ourselves) remember our first names. See if you can match the following adjectives with their owners: resilient, rebellious, daring, resolved, hopeful, conscientious, death defying, just, crazy, teachable, jumbled, likable, complicated, attentive, relaxed R, wishful, joyful, magnificent forgetful, and pixilated.

Our first handout of the day asked us to rate ourselves according to the 5 topics that corresponded to the 5 charts on the wall. We placed orange dots on the charts to record our starting points; then used clickers and software that turned the results into a bar graph.

The next handout was a quiz that we privately scored to gauge our sensitivity to receiving criticism from our peer groups.

For our childhood memory piece, we received a “Write Stuff” handout of starter phrases with the direction to check a couple to get us thinking. Ruie told us not to forget to include smell in our descriptions and solicited ideas from the group about some family times we had been thinking about, reminding us that we can use “literary license” to condense these memories in a cohesive and coherent fashion. Ron pointed out that research on memoir writing shows that truth is perception and different people may have different views of the same event.

The handout on this “remembering childhood” assignment was accompanied by instructions to write hot today, which we did for at least an hour. There will be a guided revision exercise on Wednesday with sharing of first drafts in peer groups on Thursday. Focus should be on the peer response questions, which set up the rubric for this assignment.

The afternoon was devoted to technology. Donna’s presentation on “Education in the 21st Century” sparked a discussion of what students are experiencing inside and outside of school, particularly how they are processing information. The descriptor “digital” has been applied to various terms, including digital natives vs. digital immigrants, digital literacy vs. digital fluency. For a few moments our table groups considered Prinsky’s observation: "our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach" (2001). Among the points brought up were: 2nd & 3rd graders can do more than many adults, including their teachers; a creative environment is being done outside instead of inside school; and because we don't know what's coming, we have to teach our students how to learn, analyze, etc.

A circular diagram illustrated how speed/connectivity/intangibles (using & finding knowledge) are interrelated. And Donna made the distinction between the “read only” Web 1.0 and the “read/write” characteristic of today’s Web 2.0 and “cloud computing.” Examples of ways the Web is changing can be seen in the videos created by the PS22 kids on You Tube, the Early Childhood blog where parents can add comments, and the learning stories. For fun we should check out the JibJab program, and for creating and sharing understandings, there is VoiceThread, described as a visual podcast.

Some results of these emerging technologies are: students are authors and participants rather than observers, and expertise is distributed and shared rather than residing with a centralized expert and owned. Something to think about: how technology is changing what we do as educators.

Megan introduced us to the CAWP wiki under the Web 2.0 Info site so we could plan our Thursday brunch menu. There was a learning curve to surmount as only 1 person can edit a page at a time.

Then we were guided through setting up a Delicious account to save and share bookmarks. A handout supported this exercise, and we were shown the value of organization into tags as well as using bookmarklets with the various browsers.

Donna pointed out the daily blog, “Writing with Light,” and we were introduced to e-Writers to post the pieces we will write for class.

Finally, we were assigned and received the article “Unleashing Potential with Emerging Technologies” in a numbered folder to read for future discussion.