I
am a professor of English at Westfield State University who has been
involved with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project since 2004. One
of my primary responsibilities is teaching a course required of all WSU
candidates for middle and secondary certification in
English/Language-Arts. I also coordinated our first-year writing
program for over ten years, and I continue to teach courses in
first-year writing. Currently, I supervise student teachers as well.
NWP has made me not just a stronger teacher of writing, but a stronger
teacher of teachers. Participation in such programs as the WMWP Summer
Institute, Best Practices Conferences, Team Meetings, and Writing and
Response Groups have dramatically altered the ways in which I do things
in my Teaching Writing class. These teacher-led professional
development opportunities have helped me to stay connected with middle
and secondary school classrooms, providing me with rich ideas for
instruction that I may then introduce to teacher candidates in my
classes and assigned to me for supervision. The syllabus I use today
looks entirely different from the one I used when I first started
teaching this class, with a much richer emphasis on practice as well as
theory. Students who have taken my class express their appreciation for
the concrete ideas that they have learned about--ideas which they and I
know to have been tested in other classrooms by writing project
participants.
Furthermore, recent research suggests that strong teacher education
programs provide students with opportunities to work with live students
and in real classrooms well before they begin their student teaching. I
have collaborated with two different WMWP teachers, pairing their
classes with my class in writing exchanges. Through these exchanges, my
students have opportunities to hone their skills with guidance as
readers of and responders to student writing. My students have also
planned and carried out classroom instruction for their writing
partners. Such exchanges would not have been possible had I not been
involved in a network in which I was regularly meeting and interacting
with teachers of other educational levels from my own.
I would note that I have been involved in other federally funded
grant programs and conferences meant to help me develop as a writing
teacher and as a teacher of teachers. Yet none have been as significant to my development as the WMWP chapter of the National Writing Project.
I am a professor of English at Westfield State University who has been involved with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project since 2004. One of my primary responsibilities is teaching a course required of all WSU candidates for middle and secondary certification in English/Language-Arts. I also coordinated our first-year writing program for over ten years, and I continue to teach courses in first-year writing. Currently, I supervise student teachers as well. NWP has made me not just a stronger teacher of writing, but a stronger teacher of teachers. Participation in such programs as the WMWP Summer Institute, Best Practices Conferences, Team Meetings, and Writing and Response Groups have dramatically altered the ways in which I do things in my Teaching Writing class. These teacher-led professional development opportunities have helped me to stay connected with middle and secondary school classrooms, providing me with rich ideas for instruction that I may then introduce to teacher candidates in my classes and assigned to me for supervision. The syllabus I use today looks entirely different from the one I used when I first started teaching this class, with a much richer emphasis on practice as well as theory. Students who have taken my class express their appreciation for the concrete ideas that they have learned about--ideas which they and I know to have been tested in other classrooms by writing project participants.
Furthermore, recent research suggests that strong teacher education programs provide students with opportunities to work with live students and in real classrooms well before they begin their student teaching. I have collaborated with two different WMWP teachers, pairing their classes with my class in writing exchanges. Through these exchanges, my students have opportunities to hone their skills with guidance as readers of and responders to student writing. My students have also planned and carried out classroom instruction for their writing partners. Such exchanges would not have been possible had I not been involved in a network in which I was regularly meeting and interacting with teachers of other educational levels from my own.
I would note that I have been involved in other federally funded grant programs and conferences meant to help me develop as a writing teacher and as a teacher of teachers. Yet none have been as significant to my development as the WMWP chapter of the National Writing Project.
-- Beth Ann Rothermel
Western Massachusetts Writing Project