National Writing Project Annual Meeting

“How do we find material (financial and organizational) support for our work that will sustain the core ideas of the National Writing Project?” This question seemed to be mixed into every conversation at the NWP Annual Meeting this year. Lil, Cindy and I spent a lot of time talking with other sites about how they are figuring things out given the absence of direct federal funding. In the formal sessions designed to focus on these ideas and talks with colleagues in-between, we found some answers and also more questions. There were discussions of varying models for Summer Institute. Some sites were focusing more on their youth programs; still others were connecting to community organizations with interests in writing and literacy and working with their departments of public instruction to design workshops around the Common Core Standards. Everyone seemed focused on meshing Writing Project work with initiatives that are important to schools and teachers. The UNC Charlotte Writing Project has been thinking about all of these things, too, especially since our Sustainability Institute last summer. We are excited about our work with Common Core Standards, about our new summer youth programs being sponsored by schools, and our ongoing partnership work with area schools and districts. While we did not find big answers, and it was really useful and energizing to connect with other Writing Project sites who are just as deep in this work of imagining new possibilities.

The NWP seems tenacious and eager to work with local sites to sustain our work together. If you haven’t joined NWP Connect, you should do so right away to stay abreast of all that is happening http://connect.nwp.org/national. Our site has a presence there so that we can stay in conversation together and with the national community. Also, if you haven’t already, check out our site’s work on Digital Is http://digitalis.nwp.org/. We are going to stay alive in this new terrain… and we are going to hold on to our principals even in this new terrain.

The Fall 2011 Digital Is Resource Retreat

                                                   References

Fraiberg, Steven. “Composition 2.0: Toward a Multilingual and Multimodal
     Framework.” College Composition and Communication. The National
     Council of Teachers of English 62:1 (September 2010): 100-126. Print

State Network Meeting

This past weekend while retreating at the Elerbee Inn, we had a State Network Meeting with our pals at the Tar River Writing Project.  We started the meeting with a little ranting and riffing Youth Roots style, tweaked by Lacy and Lil..  What a powerful way to clear the air about the frustrations of the past months with the federal budget and then begin to re-build together through the sharing of ideas and the building of ideas from each other.  We were able to discuss what each site is doing to seek funding from the state and university level and share roadblocks as well as successes.  We also were able to share some vital contact information and get a better understanding for the changes going down at NCDPI.  We have now shared our Sustainability Google Site with the Tar River group so that they can continue thinking with us there.

Before if was over, Lacy and Lil were firing off e-mails right and left and we were starting to think of ways to restructure NCETA and work with NCDPI.  More importantly, we were able to reconnect face to face with another group of teachers, writers and thinkers in the state who share our passion for the Writing Project.  I left the meeting reminded that when we say “In Solidarity” these great people are right there with us!

Digital Is Improv?

“Point to something and say what it’s not.”  When Lacy said this to start our Digital Is planning meeting, I laughed a little bit.  What did she say?  It would be a difficult task, but I’d give it a shot.  “Large green chandelier,” I said while pointing at the red velvet curtains.  “Those are markers” (It really was my laptop).  Then I stopped.  I found myself staring at the two-toned blue walls of our hangout spot, pointing at it, unable to name the object.

It’s a blue wall.  It is not anything but a blue wall.  It was strange to point to something and describe what it was not, and we all had difficulty trying.  But that was the point: “to make the familiar strange,” as Lil later said.

This improv activity is indicative of our work with Digital Is.  Our site’s mission is to understand/deconstruct/critically investigate our personal histories and interactions with technology and literacies.  We want to bring together our personal experiences and make connections with others based on these experiences.  We also want to question—we always question.  This is a good thing.

After this activity jump-started our thinking, we began thinking about the different events along our literacy journeys.  Specifically, we created timelines of our experiences with digital literacies in our daybooks, taking note of the years and events we felt were significant.  Lacy asked us to transfer these events to sticky notes, and together we created a group timeline of significant events.  Technologies such as the Atari game system, instant messaging, our first cell phones, etc. all made the list.  “Oh yeah, I remember that…” accompanied by a smile or a laugh was a common response for many of these examples.

Our timeline of sticky notes covered our table; there were so many, in fact, that the amount of yellow sticky notes over the table formed a U-shape rather than a straight line.  As we read each sticky note in chronological order, we began to deconstruct why these events were significant to us, making connections to each other’s experiences.  We then challenged these events by asking ourselves what dominant narratives were present or affected these experiences.  Capitalism, competition, authority—these were just some of the ideas that came out of that discussion.  Next month, we will meet again for a writing retreat in which we will delve deeper into these topics and discussions.  If our retreat is anything like our planning meeting (and I know it will be), it’s going to be awesome!

Urban Sites Conference: Boston!

On Thursday, April 28th, Lacy Manship, Dana Sutcliffe, Amy Brewer, Shaftina Allen, Alicia Wright, and Jennifer Ward boarded a plane for Boston, MA, to attend the National Writing Project’s Urban Sites Network Conference, Nurturing Student Writing: Navigating Urban Literacies. While there, they attended two days of interactive sessions that focused on using technology to empower student learning and writing. On Friday, Dana, Amy, Shaftina, Alicia, and Jennifer went on a writing marathon around Boston, complete with a rubber duck from the hotel that is now featured in the digital renderings of their journey. By far the most impressive place on the marathon was the Boston Public Library, with a close second being the multi-colored tulips in the park, planted in time to bloom for the royal wedding.

One of the highlights of Saturday was the keynote address by Ernest Morrell, an associate professor at UCLA who has worked with high school teens in Los Angeles for the past twelve years. He focused on what it means for students today to have voice and how to motivate students to find their writing voice in the digital age. Morrell emphasized that, as teachers, we must ask students what it is that they want to say, and then find ways to help them say it more powerfully. By doing so, we are helping students find their voices and, in turn, their identities. As Morrell said, students today are not suffering from an “ability crisis,” but rather an “identity crisis.” We must let students know that their voice matters.

After Morrell’s keynote, we attended various sessions that gave us bountiful resources to take back to our classrooms. Some of the session topics included ways to incorporate pop culture into lessons, using students’ technology to help them find their voice, and how to help students compose digitally. Of course, the best session of the day was in the third session, as Lacy, Shaftina, Alicia, and Jennifer presented “Reaching Students: Developing Narrative Skills through High-Interest Mentor Texts and Digital Compositions.” In their session, they highlighted the work of the Urban Sites branch of the UNCC Writing Project, as they focused on digital narratives composed over the summer of 2010 by UNCCWP TCs, and how this narrative project was brought into the classrooms of Shaftina, Alicia, and Jennifer in the 2010-2011 school year. The examples were shown to participants via Prezi. The presentation showed how the project evolved to fit each classroom and that each classroom’s digital narratives were unique yet powerful because each student had found her voice.

On Saturday evening, April 30th, Lacy, Dana, Amy, Shaftina, Alicia, and Jennifer arrived in Charlotte with many new strategies to use in their classrooms and feedback for their students’ digital narratives from teachers across the United States. With this feedback, they plan to help their students analyze their learning narratives to move past the dominant narratives and focus more on the counter-narratives within their digital compositions.

NWP Annual Meeting…

This past March, representatives from local Writing Projects all over the United States converged on Washington, DC, for the NWP Annual meeting. This is a very important event because it is during this time that NWP seeks federal funding to continue the amazing work that goes on nationally. This year, the importance was magnified as NWP’s funding was in danger of being cut because of federal government budget concerns. The UNCWP contingent arrived in DC Wednesday evening;attended an informational meeting meant to provide a context for the work we would be doing during our visit;hooked up with our friends from TRWP and figured out a plan for how to talk to our elected officials about the importance of NWP. Thursday morning, we attended a rally/information session then it was off to “the Hill.” The day was full of meetings with aides working for Representative Walter Jones (we actually caught Rep. Jones in his office and he sat with us for 30 minutes) and Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan. They listened to our stories, they took notes and attempted to offer the government’s perspective on what we could expect in terms of funding both short term and long term. The news was not good by any means. However, as the day progressed, I felt more and more confident in our ability as an organization to communicate to our government the importance NWP has in the lives of both educators and the students.

Much has happened to NWP since the annual meeting—a lot of it not good. Good, dedicated people who have worked for NWP are losing their jobs, grants that were set up to support the amazing work happening across the United States have been postponed and the committees that once drove NWP have been reduced to electronic communication. Still, local sites move forward—move on—determined to carry out the work and vision of NWP and their local interests. While I was in DC I had a sense that it was coming to this. That realization produced for me a level of calm. We may not be getting the type of funding from the government that we are used to. However, the trip to DC solidified for me the fact that no matter what NWP is about people working in solidarity to re-vision what it means to be a reader, a writer, a thinker. I am honored to have been a part of what happened at the annual meeting in DC and to be a part of something like NWP.