I seldom paid attention to writing contests for my sixth graders since they often had unusual requirements. But when a young writer gets their act together and writes to submit, something changes in their writing attitude. So, here is a writing contest you might want to think about for your students: Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Secondary School Poetry Prize 11th grade students Submit 1-3 poems Deadline March 30, 2012 princeton.edu/art/poetryprize
Last month I introduced Pam’s writing group. When asked what this time means to them, the participants answered from multiple perspectives. “I feel this is a great opportunity to reflect on writing and the importance it has in my life especially since I became involved the IWP. I find writing after school an immediate stress releaser. I enjoy hearing other people read their writing. It is inspirational. There is no pressure here and it shows. Different people, different voices, one [...]
As we know, most teachers hesitate to speak out publicly about their work. So I’m developing some exciting new work with NCTE to help more teachers find their voice in this time of education- and teacher-bashing. We’ve proposed a session on this topic at the NCTE convention next Nov., with Sonia Nieto as lead speaker & discussion tables led by outstanding educators. We’re planning an NCTE webinar on strategies for thoughtfully informing the public about our work. And we’ll be [...]
In a recent conversation with middle school literature teachers about curriculum revision, the conversation moved from content to instructional practice. I suggested that our curriculum needed to include enough flexibility to be used in classrooms that implemented a workshop model. In fact, I went so far as to say that it would be my hope that over the course of the next five years, we would see more teachers move to a workshop model rather than the traditional approach, which [...]