2009 Summer Institute is Well Under Way!

Area trachers have once again gathered together for four weeks of intensive writing, reading, and research. If you are a veteran of the 2007 or 2008 Summer Institutes, we warmly invite you to an

Ice Cream Social on Friday, June 26th, at 2:00 PM in Ellis Hall, room 111, on the Athens Campus.

Otherwise, keep Wednesday, July 25th open for Visitor's Day. This year, we will have a potluck luncheon as we listen to teachers talk about their teaching, their writing, and their Summer Institute experience.

For more information about either event, please call 740.597.2720.

Teacher Consultant Sue Fletcher Accepted to the 2009 Memorial Library Summer Seminar on Holocaust Education in New York City

Sue Fletcher, an AWP fellow from our 2008 Summer Institute and a teacher at Hocking College, has received a generous fellowship from the National Writing Project, in partnership with the Holocaust Educators Network. She will attend a Holocaust-focused seminar in New York for two weeks in July. The seminar will be lead by Dr. Sondra Perl, founding co-director of the New York City Writing Project and professor of English and Urban Education at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Sue will be among 25 teachers staying at Columbia University while learning from Holocaust survivors and experts. Sue plans to offer a workshop for AWP in the future.

Congratulations, Sue!

Appalachian Writing Project Leadership Team Announced

Thursday evening, March 5th, marked the official development of the OUAWP'S Leadership Team.

Fellows from previous Summer Institutes agree that the Writing Project has reached a crucial stage in its development and is now ready to embrace more challenges. The overall Leadership Team consists of 10 TCs (Teacher Consultants) who will offer specialized projects to our schools and in our communities. These leaders have decided to branch out into three focused teams: the Activist Team, a Community Outreach Team, and an Inservice Team. Susan Hagerty, our established Technology Liaison, is also looking to build a team around technological support.

These three teams plan to encourage political activism by addressing the educational changes taking place right now in Ohio legislation, to cultivate relationships with school districts by offering ever-more meaningful inservice opportunities, and to invigorate community investment in the simple gift of writing.

Can you see yourself participating in any of these activities? Do you wish to renew friendships with the teachers you met at the Summer Institute? Do you want be more involved? If so, contact a Teacher Consultant from the following list--today!

Teaching and Writing Fellows’ Homecoming

Teachers from both Summer Institutes, 2007 & 2008, met in November to discuss the future direction of our site. We began with directed writing, using a microtheme index card to visually express, in a single word, our relationships to writing and how writing fits into our lives now. We then moved on to discuss what types of writing and teaching groups we wanted to form and how best to sustain them. Finally, the evening ended by rearticulating our vision for OUAWP and bouncing around recruitment strategies for the 2009 SI. If you missed the meeting and would like a quick update, feel free to contact Deb Nickles at nickles@ohio.edu or give her a call at 740.597.1869 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Susan Hagerty Named as Technology Liaison

Congratulations to Susan Hagerty for being named the Ohio University Appalachian Writing Project's Technology Liaison! Susan currently teaches at Belpre City Schools and is also a Teaching Consultant from OUAWP's first Summer Institute in 2007. She will be accompanying the AWP director and co-directors to the Annual National Writing Project's Meeting in San Antonio, Texas during the third week of November. At the meeting she will learn to access the Technology Liaisons Network and help our site to "use and integrate technology to support the teaching and learning of writing" both locally and on a national level. Welcome, Susan.

Teacher Fellows Present Inservice

OUAWP would like to thank Melissa Hillard, Merrilee Carlon, and Kris Strawser for presenting a Writing Strategies inservice last September for all 5th grade teachers in the Logan-Hocking Local School District. Kris says that "it went well and we got positive feedback. We also passed out applications for the class next year. Several people picked one up, so I think we are getting the word out about how great the program is."

Great work, folks!

If you are interested in providing an inservice for your own district and would like support, please contact the office at 740-597-1869 or awp@ohiou.edu for assistance.

Back from Chicago, TC Lois Spencer has "Great Experience"

Working with "some of the top English teachers around," Lois Spencer, from Fort Frye Local School District, spent September 24-27 in Chicago scoring middle school students' writing as part of the NWP's research effort to evaluate five years' worth of professional development partnership activities. Lois explains that the project is designed to "determine if there is significant differences between scores on papers scored analytically as opposed to those scored holistically." She is also looking forward to reviewing the data and hopes to return to another session in June, this time in Denver. NWP covered her travel expenses and provided a modest stipend of $500. We are glad to have Lois, and any other TCs who may be interested, represent our site and region at such NWP functions. Thanks, Lois!

Fall Gathering Date Set for November 8th

The OUAWP fall workshop has been set for November 8th, 5:30-7:30 p.m., in the Faculty Commons at Alden Library. We are especially excited to gather on this evening because teaching fellows from both Summer Institutes will meet and share writing experiences from all over the region. How fabulous to be in on the first gathering of such a committed and outstanding community!

Teacher Consultant (TC) Tonya James Selected for Professional Writing Retreat

Tonya James, the OUAWP's first teacher consultant, has been selected to participate in the National Writing Project's Professional Writing Retreat to be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in June. Tonya was selected from applicants at over 200 National Writing Project sites. Congratulations Tonya!

                                                                                         Tonya James at the 2007 SI