Teaching Expository & Persuasive Writing, held at Holyoke Community College
Reading & Teaching American Literary Nonfiction, held at Springfield Central High School.

See the attached brochure for descriptions and dates for each of these institutes.  Intended for high school and middle school ELA teachers, these institutes can also help ELL and special education teachers who want to improve their ELA content knowledge and skills.

There is no cost to register for the institutes, and participants in either institute will be eligible to receive 67.5 PDPs and $250 in curriculum materials for the classroom.  Additionally, participants can earn graduate credit from UMass Amherst at a low tuition rate.

If you would be interested in participating, please fill out the attached application form (dese_institutes_application_form) and submit it to the Western Massachusetts Writing Project by email, fax, or mail.

Also, please forward the information to any colleagues you know might be interested.  (See flier: wmwp-doe-institutes) The information and application can also be found on our website <http://www.umass.edu/wmwp/programs/dese_institutes.htm>.

Western Massachusetts Writing Project
258 Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
413-545-5466

www.umass.edu/wmwp/

First Prize: “Seventeen Mean,” by Margaret Livingstone, Pioneer Valley Regional
Second Prize: “Listening to the Music of the Wood,” by Kevin Hodgson, William E. Norris Elementary

Seventeen Mean

Bitter words escape his lips, unbidden.
They spew from his mouth, unleashed.
I hate you, he stabs, cutting deeply,
slicing an earlier, cheap shot with worse.

This is how he is, lean at seventeen and mean.

He needs to take control. Maturing,
my child pulls free from me, away.
My super healing power stems
internal bleeding where my heart is rent.

This is how it is routine, now that he is seventeen and mean.

How many years since I was at seventeen, mean?
Remembering, knowing how not to act, or react,
or push back, taking the hits he needs to give,
showing powers of restraint, my mother never used.

This is how I survive each scene with seventeen and mean.

She hit back, returning stabs, often pushing first.
Two strong-willed women butting heads,
no safe space or boundaries to shove against.
I left before she could turn me out, onto the streets.

This is how it failed, she as queen and I at seventeen and mean.

Hard for me, but for him much harder.
He must sever bonds grown strong, taproot
deep, pushing the edges of the safe places in his life.
He needs his dad more. For now, I am the enemy.

This is how it is with him, keen to be seventeen and mean.

But I am not she. He can ram against me, relentlessly.
I offer safe harbor, to test, try, hatch, and fly. With patience,
I watch for his fragile emotions, eggshells strewn about.
Like an Eastern mystic, I’d rather walk on fire.

This is how it is to live between seventeen and mean.

Listening to the Music of the Wood

They all left on Sunday mornings,
dressed up in clean clothes and polished shoes;
their faces leaning against the inside windows of their parents’ cars
as I waved goodbye in my dirty jeans and beat up sneakers,
feeling not quite alone but utterly free as they disappeared down the road.

I’d take in the deepest breath of the day;
drawing in the silence of the neighborhood to consider my own thoughts
of the Infinite and the world beneath and above me.

I imagined their preacher standing up high on the pulpit,
pushing back against the sins of the world,
delivering sermons on the temptations that lay around us,
guarding his flock against the tide of bad judgments and unexpected calamity,
moving his congregation with equal parts anger and compassion
to understand that this is but a fragile peace
and that one must live with open hearts and open minds,
while my friends – so prim and proper on the outside yet full of chaos and energy on the
inside –
fidgeted in their seats with empty ears,
daydreaming about the Wood . . .

where I scampered about with abandon in the early morning Sunday light,
climbing the tallest trees to survey the world from above
and declaring this place to be my own Heavenly Kingdom
for as far as my eyes could see.

My friends sat on hard benches, balancing bibles on their knees,
absentmindedly turning page after page, scanning words
written in a language they could not quite understand –
while I opened my long, sharp, silver pocketknife
and carved a secret name into the biggest tree I could find,
pledging myself Protector of the Wood from the Great Unknown
that always seemed to be lurking just beyond view.

It was only a matter of time . . .

Those spirits later did come calling – right at my doorstep –
and it turned out that neither the preacher nor the Wood
could do much to fend off the sadness of the world,
although I often retreated to the trees for solace and comfort,
seeking out their protection as I once promised mine to them.
I’d rub my fingers along the engraved secret name
and feel the wounds I had made with my words and actions,
complicit and conflicted and completely alone.

A childhood is made up of overlapping worlds:
some defined for us; some, we make our own.
On Sunday mornings, when I’d become the center of the Universe,
the possibilities of changing this place for the better never seemed more likely than
when I was
lying down on fallen leaves,
staring up past the treetops,
pushing off into the clouds,
listening to the music of the Wood.

Keep on writing!

Click here to get a PDF copy of the flier which includes the registration slip.

Or you can use the WMWP online registration site.

We hope to see you there!

– The WMWP Tech Team

Here is a look at one of the reflection sessions of a group that completed its program in March.

The deadline for this year’s WMWP Writing Contest has been extended to December 19th, so get out those pens and submit a piece of writing. This event may be labeled a contest, but it is more an opportunity for you to see yourself as a writer, with the opportunity to get published in WMWP publications.

The rules:

The Western Massachusetts Writing Project invites all Massachusetts educators to submit manuscripts of up to 750 words for its annual Teachers as Writers Contest.

First Prize: Publication in the WMWP February newsletter and on the website. The author will receive a $100 credit to be used toward any WMWP Teachers as Writers program.

Second Prize: Publication on the WMWP website. The author will receive a $50 credit to be used toward any WMWP Teachers as Writers program.

Only one entry per person. Entry must be typed (without author’s name) and accompanied by a cover sheet with contact information.

Guidelines:

• Manuscripts will be accepted until December 19 and should be limited to 750 words or less.
• Entries may be in any genre (personal narrative, essay, play, poem, story, etc.) and on any topic, incding but not limited to stories about teaching and learning.
• Only one entry will be accepted per person. (A single poem is one entry.)
• Only previously unpublished work will be accepted.
• All entries must be typed. The author’s name should NOT be included on any piece.
• Each entry must be accompanied by a cover sheet stating the author’s name, school and home addresses, telephone numbers, and email.
• Written responses to entries are available upon request. Please indicate on the cover sheet if you would like a response from the editorial board.
• Entries will be judged by an editorial board of WMWP teachers. The editorial board and the WMWP co-directors are not eligible for the contest.

Send your manuscript and cover sheet to:

Western Massachusetts Writing Project
258 Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

Meanwhile, the Northampton Poet Laureate, Leslee Newman (who has led several workshops and participated in various events with WMWP), has launched a Poetry Contest that seeks to counter the winter blues by focusing on the theme of JOY. The Paradise Poetry Prize even is being sponsored by the Northampton Center for the Arts, Broadside Books and the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper.

Here are the particulars of the Paradise Poetry Prize:

Poets must live in Hampshire, Franklin or Hampden counties.

· Each poet may enter only one poem, previously unpublished, no more than 30 lines long and on the topic of joy.

· Poets should send a cover sheet with their name, address, phone number, email address and the title of the poem. The poem should be on its own piece of paper, without the poet’s name or other identifying information.

· Submission must be postmarked between Jan. 1 and 31, 2009. Early or late entries will be disqualified. Email entries will not be accepted. The poems cannot be returned.

· Send entries to:

Paradise Poetry Prize
Northampton Arts Council
240 Main Street, Room 5
Northampton, MA 01060

So, go forth and write!

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Once again, the Western Massachusetts Writing Project was well represented at the Annual Meeting of the National Writing Project. Three days of workshops, seminars and making connections with other members of the Writing Project will help to inform our site.

If you are interested, WMWP Technology Liaison Kevin Hodgson has created podcasts of a few of the speeches given in the general assembly that hosted more than 1,000 members of the National Writing Project.

Give a listen:

Listen to Sharon Washington (the new executive director of NWP, who talks about being open for the unexpected in life and taking chances): http://www.box.net/shared/bursxehiia

Kylene Beers (president of NCTE, who refers to the National Day of Writing set for next October): http://www.box.net/shared/8cvg5kucrv

Dolores Perez (inspiring TC story about being stuck between two cultural worlds and finding a way back in): http://www.box.net/shared/2cgxrmq4zc

Head to the SummerWRITE eZine to read and view student work.

New 30 Ideas That Work

You can read the article over at MassLive with this link (and check out their use of student writing in meaningful ways) or click on the article below.

What did you like about Best Practices this year? Use the comment link to add your thoughts.

Several participants in the Summer 2008 section of English 712, taught be Bruce Penniman, have offered to post their inquiry projects here as resources to other teachers.  Thanks to Colleen, Jon, and Pam for sharing the fruits of their labors!

Click on the links to view the papers:

• Read Colleen’s paper: Getting Writing Response Right
• Read Jon’s paper: The Five Paragraph Gaffe
• Read Pam’s paper: When Teachers Respond to Students’ Writing