Thanks for your feedback on the last newsletter! Here is the next one with new information, reminders, and lots of opportunities. Feel free to send any feedback. I really appreciate it. This will also be posted on the blog each week in case you need to find it.

We want to encourage students to submit their writing, for publication as well as for scholarships. To that end, every session at this year’s Middle School Writing Conference – held on Friday, May 8 – will align with one or more writing competition categories outlined by the Language Arts Department of Southwest Missouri.

LAD Fair, an annual competition hosted by the Language Arts Department of Southwest Missouri, provides students an opportunity to submit their writing and receive awards from writers and educators in the community who serve as adjudicators. The postmark deadline for K-12 students to submit to the LAD Fair is March 20, 2020.

Registration for the Middle School Writing Conference will open soon – be sure to take a moment to check out this year’s sessions. The earlier students register, the better chance they have to be placed in their top choices.

We look forward to seeing what students write for the Middle School Writing Conference and the LAD Fair.

Due to illness in our office, we had to cancel the Anna Julia Cooper transcribe-a-thon scheduled for February 14.

However, we still encourage you to take a moment to celebrate Douglass Day in-between exchanging valentines this Friday.

Did you know February 14 isn’t just for valentines?

This Friday, join us anytime between 11 AM and 2 PM in Meyer Library 010B to help digitize the works of visionary Black feminist Anna Julia Cooper in honor of Douglass Day.

Help preserve Black history and enjoy music and free food from Big Momma’s.

Open Institute on Teacher Leadership
Spring 2017

Study Away: Write Across Missouri
Summer 2017

At the first-ever High School Writing Conference on Friday, December 9, some of the most talented teacher-writers in southwest Missouri will conduct sessions designed to inspire students in grades 9-12 to Make Your Statement, Write Your Story.  Session topics include script writing, parody, slam poetry, comic books and graphic novels, making money from writing, flash fiction, and a writing marathon.  The last session of the day in Plaster Student Union will include a keynote address by author Michael Frizell and an open mic; this session will be open to the public.

The cost per student is $45 which includes lunch.  Their teachers attend free.  Limited seats are available, so sign up early!  Please register by November 11.

Here’s a handy printable to distribute to your students.

Questions? Contact Colleen Appel at Appel7208@missouristate.edu.

#OWP_YourStory

Congratulations to Heather Payne, co-director of Ozarks Writing Project (OWP), and Laurie Buffington,
OWP teacher consultant and English teacher at Laquey High School, for being invited to share their experiences as teacher leaders during a webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) Community.

The webinar, which took place on September 14,  is available online.  We encourage you to listen for our representatives from OWP as they discuss their journeys in becoming successful teacher leaders!

Thank you, Heather and Laurie, for your important work with the College-Ready Writers Program.

Julie Morris, English teacher at Macks Creek High School, has been named MSTA Southwest Region Rookie Teacher of the Year for 2015-2016.  This prestigious award is designed to recognize the contributions of a classroom teacher of 5 years or less who is exceptionally dedicated, knowledgeable and skilled, and has the ability to inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn.

This is Morris’s fourth year at Macks Creek, where she teaches 7th and 8th grade English, along with dual credit Creative Writing, Literature, and Composition.  She also serves as a class sponsor, cheerleading coach, FBLA adviser, and active CTA member.  She is a Teacher Consultant for the Ozarks Writing Project, and she has a printed publication to her credit.

Morris’s ability to inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities is what makes her such a successful teacher in the rural Missouri school system.  Part of her educational philosophy is, “Students must be developed intellectually, emotionally, and socially to succeed in life, and deserve an education that will nurture the expansion of all three.  As an educator, I strive to give students the best education possible, and to help them succeed in and out of the classroom.”  She was also named the Missouri Association of Rural Education Outstanding Middle School Teacher of the Year for the 2014-2015 school year due to her efforts in and out of the classroom.

Julie is a 2005 graduate of Clearwater High School. She is the daughter of Mike Morris and Holly Ferguson of Piedmont.

Press Release, Missouri State Teachers Association

This is an excerpt of writing from the writing marathon that took place at Bennett Springs State Park on September 19.

2:37 p.m., along the stream between spring and river

Families come to Bennett Spring, the one next to us a mother, father, and an eight-year-old son. Norman Rockwell, were he painting in Missouri this day, could do no better. The gnats, though, might tax his concentration. I’m wondering, at the moment, what I should write. Something about gnats? Instead, I shift positions, but they follow.

What profundity can I dredge up? None, I confess. It is enough, this moment, to be, that tiresome old cliché. I care not if I fish, care not much if the mosquito circling my right ear takes a meal. I’m at peace, and the sense of surprise at this feeling says rather too much. I am not distressed by my mother’s failing mind, failing body, and recent death; my father’s frailty and neediness; the pestilence of moles in my lawn . . . not even by the “ain’t gonna’s” employed by the mother ten yards up-river from me in conversation with her son (rather marring the Rockwell effect). Today, the river flows past, and if I fail to deliver a kick-ass simile to impress my companions, it’s ok. And I didn’t even have that second beer at lunch.

I cannot fix everything, perhaps anything. I can, however, take pleasure in the company of people, teachers whom I grew to admire and respect during the summer. I can accept the gift of a perfect day.

This reflection was written in response to our OWP Fall Writing Retreat and Renewal at Bennett Springs State Park on Sept. 18-20. 

Reflection

For the short time that I was there it was like coming home and being with my own kind.  All of the teachers that I have been involved with have exhibited true professionalism and dedication.  In the twenty years that I have been a teacher I have witnessed the most enthusiasm and always words from the heart of each teacher.  The Fall Writing Retreat was like a family reunion.  We had fellowship, enjoyed the outdoors (not the bugs, though), cooked, ate, laughed, cried, wrote, and shared over the weekend.  Being an older teacher, I appreciate it when I get a new spark in my teaching career.  My students are catching the enthusiasm, too. Thank you, OWP teachers and staff, for helping me to enjoy writing and teaching again.

The following reflection was written by Dr. Gretchen Teague about the First Annual Ozarks Writing Project Fall Writing Retreat held at Bennett Springs State Park on Sept. 18-20, 2015.

September 29, 2015 7:45 A.M. Back Home in Springfield, MO

Remembering Fire and Water

Thinking back, it is hard to imagine the first annual OWP Writer’s Retreat at Bennett Springs was only a little over a week ago. The weekend began with on Friday, September 18, three hardy souls met to share dinner, conversation, and writing. It was a relaxing evening spent companionably around the campfire. Our folding chairs became our office, our notebooks our desk, and the blazing fire our light source. The raucous laughter gave way to the muted scratching of pens to paper, voices sharing writing, and the murmured “thank you for sharing.” The shared experience of writing around the fire brought similar memories to our minds of other campfires. This moment is now memory fodder for future reflective writing fires.

The morning dawned, burning as brightly as our campfire the night before. Coffee and conversation over a breakfast in the camp dining hall; nourishment before the writing frenzy of the marathon. By 10 a.m., we had met up with five more writers and began our writing marathon. The journey of the two groups of writers diverged and merged throughout the day; paths crossing momentarily filled with excited chatter of all the places we had found solitude and activity. The topography of our writing expedition took us to the peaceful cliff top of Vespers Point overlooking the river below and surrounded by protective hawks circling above. We ventured through the paths of the park, avoiding snakes, gnats, and fisher folk, to the spring itself. Although we left the water running through Bennett Springs Park often, we all felt the strong pull to come back. A cleansing of spirit and writing next to the river.

By evening, we felt refreshed and renewed, just as the weekend promised. A collection of participants from the 2015 Summer Institute joined the ranks for an evening meal, a celebration of classroom experiments, a share-around of writing, and camaraderie. The fire blazed in us once again as we were thrilled by the successes of our friends and challenged to make ourselves better teachers, humans, and friends. The supportive “thank you for sharing” flowed gently down the table, mimicking the river behind our backs, serving as a reminder of the power of words written, spoken, shared.

We left the gathering of old and new friends ready to take on the everyday life struggles with a little more compassion and understanding, feeling supported and supporting, relaxed, refreshed, and renewed. As we parted ways, the rustling of the leaves echoed “thank you for sharing.”

Our Middle School Youth Writing Camp is entering into it’s second week! Last week, we tried our hand at poetry, short stories, altered books and more. We even braved the rain to do a nature photography scavenger hunt and place-writing!

Friday, we did a brief Author’s Chair at the Park Central Library, where we shared a couple of original pieces including some of the micro flash fiction that we wrote. Two of the final products are below:

Sci-fi:  Just a normal day. Flying to work on my Jet Pack. Past hover cars and sky scrapers. I enter a building and make new inventions.

Horror: I saw something following me it was gray and tall. Then I saw it coming closer and closer. I screamed help m…

We’re looking forward to another week full of more creating, thinking, writing and fun, but maybe a little less rain!

The Ozarks Writing Project 2015 Summer Institute is just around the corner, i.e. June 8-July 1, 2015.  With that in mind, I wanted to write to first remind local educators (in all content areas and grade levels) that we are accepting applications to the institute due on March 23.  The instructions for the institute are posted on this website. I experienced my first summer institute in the summer of 1997 at a rural institute in the community of Henderson, Nebraska, population 986 (and several assorted cats and dogs).  Henderson was unique because it is a Mennonite community with an agricultural foundation.  The rural institute was unique becasue it was held at Henderson Public Schools.  I commuted 15 minutes to the site but others, i.e. teachers from every corner of the state, either lived in people’s homes or a local hotel for the four weeks of the summer institute.  To say that we bonded as educators is an understatement. To help you understand a bit more about my experience in that summer institute, I offer you an excerpt from my dissertation, “Living Well: The Value of Teaching Place,” where I write about how that rural institue became the impetus for the research I continue to do in place conscious pedagogy.

Twelve teacher leaders are participating in a Teacher Leadership Workshop course throughout this spring semester.  We are focused upon understanding more deeply what it means to be a teacher leader in our own classrooms, within our school district (or university) and within our local community.  We are investigating what it means to become an advocate for our profession by the inquiries we have established within our classrooms and schools.  Through this investigative lens, we are learning how to be agents for change in our schools and in our communities.  This workshop also specifically focuses upon how we are developing a new project or significantly redesigning an existing project that can be implemented in our classrooms or in conjunction with community agencies or individuals.  We have experienced intense research into the development of curriculum through small group or cadre work and exchange of both personal and professional writing.  We are learning how this kind of research-based inquiry can be modeled to other teachers at our Ozarks Writing Project site so others may understand the importance of research/evidence-based curriculum design and implementation.

We have learned a great deal about teacher leadership through this workshop, but first and foremost we’ve learned that we often don’t completely understand what it means to be a teacher leader, because, as educators, we are continuously barraged with negative publicity.  We have a tendency to forget that we are leaders in our schools and communities.  We have gained a greater understanding of what it means to advocate for education within our school districts.  We are learning that we cannot be an agent of change if we are not willing to advocate on behalf of our students to administrators, school boards, or the community.  We know this kind of leadership is crucial if we are going to develop curriculum that involves connections with community members. We are also absorbing information about the latest digital tools and how to integrate these tools into our classrooms thereby increasing our students’ digital literacy.  As leaders, we must be on the cutting edge of the rapid changes in education so digital literacy is essential.

We are eagerly and earnestly jumping into our inquiry projects focused upon both teacher leadership and literacy instruction, including some of the following: student-led writing groups, revision strategies in the creative writing classroom, after school writing clubs, argument writing, informal grammar instruction, podcasting and daily writing, just to name a few.   The list of books that teachers have requested is an impressive collection, too:

Buckner, Aimee. Notebook Know How: Strategies for the Writer’s Notebook. 

Connors, Neila. If You Don’t Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students: Guide to Success for Administrators and Teachers. 

Clark, Ron. The Essential 55: An Award-Winning Educator’s Rules For Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child.

Culham, Ruth. The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of Writing.

Gallagher, Kelly. Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts.

Heard, Georgia. Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.

—. Finding the Heart of Nonfiction: Teaching 7 Essential Craft Tools with Mentor Texts.

—. Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way.

Hicks, Troy. Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres Paperback.

—. The Digital Writing Workshop 

Hobbs, Renee. Discovering Media Literacy: Teaching Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School.

Kittle, Penny. Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in High School Writing

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

Noden, Harry. Image Grammar, Second Edition: Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process.

Romano, Tom.  Fearless Writing: Multigenre to Motivate and Inspire.

Scott, Susan. Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time.

Schoeberlein, Deborah and David and Suki Smith. Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness: A Guide for Anyone Who Teaches Anything.

Silverman, Rita. Case Studies for Teacher Problem Solving.

Tobin, Lad. Writing Relationships: What Really Happens in the Composition Class.

Weaver, Connie. Grammar to Enrich and Enhance Writing.

Winter, Dave and Robbins, Sarah.  Writing Our Communities: Local Learning and Public Culture.

Wong, Harry.  The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher, 4th Edition.

In March we will experience two field trips that will demonstrate how teachers can utilize local resources in their curriculum.  We will visit the archives of the Meyer Library on the Missouri State University Campus where we will learn how we might utilize some of the historical documents.  We will also tour the Springfield Art Museum and the Nature Center where we’ll have an opportunity to learn about the educational programs offered at each so that we might consider the possibilities for our own students.

Colleen Appel, Teacher-Consultant of the Ozarks Writing Project, describes professional development and student writing activities to teach on demand writing.

Teachers across the disciplines are increasingly seeing themselves as teachers of literacy and understand the literacy practices in the content areas are distinct but overlap in a student’s daily literacy learning experience–”a key reason why time for joint planning is critical (NCLE).” This post discusses background and activities that teachers can do with students and with other teachers related to writing on demand.

Monett Middle School teachers, having already established an environment for collaboration in grade level content area teams, are moving forward in school-wide collaborative efforts. The focus of January’s professional development session will be helping teachers understand the rhetorical moves of testing prompts in order to design assignments with greater rigor and prepare students for summative assessments.

The National Center for Literacy Education, an alliance of 29 leading education organizations, has studied “what works” in capacity building for literacy. Their key findings are as follows:

• Literacy is not just the English teacher’s job anymore.
• Working together is working smarter.
• But schools aren’t structured to facilitate educators working together.
• Many of the building blocks for remodeling literacy learning are in place.
• Effective collaboration needs systemic support.

The authors of Writing on Demand for the Common Core State Standards Assessments, Kelly Sassi and Anne Gere, offer professional learning activities based on the following classroom-tested assumptions:

1. Changes in assessment help shape instruction.
2. Writing prompts employ rhetorically shaped language.
3. Writing skills should be developed by content area teachers as well as language arts teachers.
4. A vertical approach fosters writing improvement.
5. Text-dependent writing requires focused instruction.
6. Criteria for evaluation belong in the classroom.

Activity One – Surveying the Shifts

1. List the kinds of writing your students currently do in your class.
2. Compare the kinds of writing you currently do with the kinds of writing emphasized in “Pedagogical Shifts.”
3. Share as a group with one person tabulating the results.
4. Ask the group: What kinds of literacy needs are we successfully meeting? Is there any kind of literacy we should be spending more time on? For example, should students be reading more informational texts? If so, which course(s) can meet this need?

Activity Two – Inventory of Literacy Skills

Select an item from the CCSS assessments. Write a detailed explanation of how you arrived at an answer. (Also a classroom move.) Working together, make a list of all the literacy skills students will need to succeed on this item. Brainstorm ideas for instruction that will address the items on the list. (Page 40 of Writing on Demand offers a sample list.)

Classroom Moves – Understanding the Language of Assessment

Students can use the following form when called to read complex text:

• In three sentences summarize the main points of the passage.
• What was confusing or difficult to understand?
• What words are unfamiliar?

Activity Three – Developing Curriculum

One curriculum change teachers can make on their own is to simply increase the amount of writing that students do. The majority of writing should take place at Level 1 – personal, informal and ungraded. Level 2 writing is for an audience, more formal, and graded. Writing skills are best developed at these two levels. Level 3 writing is public, formal, and high stakes. “Maxwell’s Levels of Writing”

Brainstorm Level 1 writing activities for one of the units of study you have developed. Discuss how the writing activities can both help students increase the amount of writing they do and learn content material. Remember that Level 1 writing is ungraded.

(Processes supporting curriculum development: checking for text complexity, considering big ideas and essential questions, aligning with standards)

Activity Four – Internalizing the Writing Process

“For writing transfer to take place, students need to be in charge of and to manipulate their own process.” Students who do well on writing-on-demand tests can easily describe their thinking process. To initiate a conversation about writing process, start by writing. Each teacher, picking the last piece he or she wrote, does a quick-write describing his or her own writing process. Share with a small group. It is likely no two people share the same process. Share the kinds of process strategies that work well for the grade level and subject taught.

Classroom Moves – The Writing Process

Sassi and Gere offer ideas for prewriting, drafting, and revising. They also state that “Motivation is key when it comes to starting the writing process,” and offer some ideas to motivate students.

Activity Five – The Performance Task

Teachers will examine in depth an 8th grade performance task. With reading selections from their subject areas, members of content area teams can work together to develop questions that will help students identify the key points in each selection, comparing how this process differs across the disciplines. Teachers can refer to “Bloom’s Taxonomy Applied to CCSS” to prepare questions.

Teachers will use “Prompt Analysis Questions” to address the rhetorical features of the prompt. “Rhetorical Strategies” further explains Question 4. Teachers will apply these questions to prompts and assignments in their own disciplines; they are a lens through which assignments can be examined in order to diminish student confusion. “Prompt Analysis Questions for Creating Rhetorically Based Assignments”

Activity Six – Criteria for Evaluation

Examine a generic rubric and describe what would be different between a piece of writing that receives all 4’s and one that receives all 1’s. Then examine an assignment-specific rubric and compare it to the generic one. Creating a rubric that either students help write or that they can view while they are writing helps them understand the assignment more clearly.

See the article “Using the Rhetorical Situation to Inform Literacy Instruction and Assessment across the Disciplines” for more information. The authors describe

a framework for approaching how teachers across the disciplines discuss what students are expected to know and how students are assessed.

(An additional chapter in Writing on Demand focuses on the demands of a timed assessment.)

Sassi, Kelly and Anne Ruggles Gere. 2014. Writing on Demand for the Common Core State Standards Assessments. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.