NVWP TC and 2012 Farrington Award Winner Karen Hickman

It is with great pleasure that we announce the recipient of the fourth annual Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award–Karen Hickman!  Karen has been a Teacher Consultant since 1991 and is a co-director of the NVWP Young Writers and Families Programs.

Karen intends to use the funds from this award to attend the 2012 Book Passage Children’s Writers Conference in Corte Madera, California from June 14-17.  A dedicated writer since receiving her first typewriter in 5th grade, Karen’s commitment to writing for four minutes every day has led to achievements such as publishing a chapter in Toby Fulwiler’s The Journal Book and writing online articles for NCTE. She now directs her focus to writing her own book and says that receiving this award and attending the Book Passage conference will be “the spark and motivation to advance my writing and bring my writing to publication.”

Our sincere gratitude goes to Mark Farrington for making this annual award possible and for giving TCs the opportunity to focus on their own writing. We also would like to thank everyone who applied for the award this year. We received many compelling applications and our decision was a difficult one. Finally, we send our congratulations to Karen Hickman and wish her well as she embarks on this journey.

NCTE’s Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines (PRESLM) recognizes students, teachers, and schools for producing excellent literary magazines. The program’s mission is to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines, seeking excellence in writing and school-wide participation in production.

The NCTE recognized the following Northern Virginia Teacher Consultants (TCs) with the Highest Award:

Jim Davis: Molten Art; Colonial Forge High School

Emily Orser: Threshold: A Magazine for the Arts and Sciences; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology

Cathy Hailey: Eddas; Woodbridge Senior High School

TCs who received the Superior-Nominated for Highest Award:

Christine Kervina: Zoic Magazine; Centreville High School

Kimberly Schell: Connections; Osbourn High School

TCs who received the Superior award:

Kathy Smaltz: Rhapsody; Brentsville District High School

TCs that received the Above Average award:

Rhonda Lancaster: Afterwords: On the Other Side; James Wood High School

Please join us in congratulating these Teacher Consultants and their students!

This past November GMU English Major and NVWP staff member Deborah Krat visited two of our Fall Saturday workshops to find out what the buzz is all about. 

The Privilege of Writing

By Deborah Krat, NVWP Staff

As I walked into the Visualization workshop, the teacher consultant, Jennifer Carter-Wharton, asked the students, “What is Visualization?”  The students responded with impressive answers such as, “Writing through our senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, touch), and to create imagery for the reader.” In the beginning, the students seemed a bit timid and shy at first when warming up, hoping to not give the wrong answer, but there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to writing.  It is the writer’s opinion and imagination that keeps the writing process going, thus allowing the young writers to share their stories by the end of the session.

As a warm-up exercise, Jennifer asked the students to write a story, poem, song, etc. using their senses while looking at New York City pictures on postcards for 20 minutes. When the TC informed the students, “Okay, start wrapping it up,” I could hear the students’ pens rapidly gliding across the pages, figuring out the perfect ending to a great story.  Their faces frightened with fear of reading out-loud, their minds rapidly flowing with thoughts about their stories mirroring these images, and the constant turning of fully written crinkled pages made Jennifer’s face light up with a bright smile.   These students were determined writers.

While observing Jennifer’s session, a sixth-grader sitting to my right was writing a story about a woman walking in Central Park and observing the wintry mix around her.  A girl to my left had a picture of a horse carriage in Central Park, but was inspired to write about a gravesite, imagining the carriage parked in front of one.  A middle-school-aged boy wrote about a man looking at and playing with a sailboat, using descriptive imagery describing what the man and the sailboat looked like.  A high school girl wrote about a person overlooking a bridge in Central Park and described the scene as a person looking back on their childhood when they used to walk that bridge.  All these imaginative descriptions made me feel like I was walking around Central Park in the middle of winter.

For the remaining time of the session, Jennifer asked them to write a story based on different post-card pictures, a set of “The Sandman” post cards.  These images added more depth and color, but displayed a darker tone to the characters the artist used.   The students liked these images more because they were colorful and interesting to look at.  Some students used the same character from their previous activity in this one, but added a darker twist to their personalities using these images.  One student said, “I wrote my image based on a horror story cliché, like the person is walking through a midnight forest.  I don’t usually write about dark stuff.  I usually write about blind people, so that’s why I use the sense sight more in my stories.”

This Young Writers’ session transported me back to my freshman year at Lake Braddock Secondary School where I realized I wanted to be a writer.  I knew after taking my first high school English class I wanted to become an English major and pursue a career in writing and publishing.  I remember how excited I was getting my thoughts, emotions, and imagination down on paper.  I felt like I could write about anything and everything because there was no right or wrong answer when it comes to writing.

Throughout high school, I always looked forward to attending my English classes because they were the most exciting for me while being in school.  I couldn’t wait to meet my new teacher every year, read the different material they planned for the curriculum, and also listen to what my peers wrote in each class.  After taking various English classes, I was determined to push myself and take AP English my senior year, which is the Advanced Placement English class for high school students. This helped perfect my reading and writing skills further because of the amount of material we had to read and understand.

As a senior college student at George Mason University, I was surprised and intrigued by the students’ responses because of how smart and quick to the point they were.  In addition, hearing these types of visualizations wowed me because of how creative they were, especially from young students.  I was glad that I had the privilege of sitting in on these workshops and hearing what young students write about, because they were all creative and imaginative.

Today, college and beginning professional writers still struggle to get their voice heard, read in front of an audience, and perfect their writing to the best of their ability.  These young writers already have an advantage by getting their voices heard at the start of their educational careers.  It’s also beneficial for these young writers to take advantage of the writing centers in their elementary, middle, and high schools because a writing center is there for the students to more fully comprehend the English language and improve their grammar and writing skills.  The writing center tutors and other teachers will work one-on-one with these students until their writing is clear and concise.  Knowing the resources I had when I was in elementary and middle school, I wish I had taken more advantage of them.  Learning is easier and fun to understand because of the advanced technology we have today, which these young writers will perfect in the next 5-10 years.

The Northern Virginia Writing Project (NVWP) truly is a spectacular organization for young writers and teachers, and it continues to strive for every child’s success in the future. As a college student, I envy these young students for taking advantage of this program because it strengthens their writing skills at an early age.  I wish I knew about the Northern Virginia Writing Project when I was in elementary school because it would have made English courses and writing workshops that much easier and more fun for me.  According to the NVWP website, “The mission of the Northern Virginia Writing Project is to improve writing instruction, writing practice, and learning at all educational levels.”  This proves anyone at any age can improve their writing skills and make learning a lot easier and more fun.  These students are truly young professional writers.

Click here for more information or to register for our Spring 2012 Young Writers’ Workshops. 

US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION RELEASES STRATEGIC PLAN FOR FY 2011-2014 AND SOLICITS PUBLIC COMMENT 

On Friday, January 13, the Department of Education (ED) posted their draft strategic plan for fiscal years 2011-2014 and is soliciting public comments which must be submitted by Friday, January 27, 2012. The plan contains six goals: 1) To increase college access, quality and completion through the improvement of postsecondary education, career-technical education, and adult education; 2) To increase the number of students who are college- and career-ready through the improvement of classroom instruction and rigorous academic standards while providing support services; 3) To improve early learning through effective services addressing health, social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes for high-need children from birth to 3rd grade; 4) To improve the use of data, research, evaluation, transparency, innovation and technology to improve and enhance the education system; 5) To continue to provide an equitable education to all students; and 6) To increase and improve the ED’s organizational capacity to properly address and implement this strategic plan. The draft also highlights three points of focus: 1) An emphasis on early learning; 2) A commitment to college-readiness for all high school graduates; and 3) To provide supports to students to ensure they complete postsecondary education with a credential such as a degree or certificate.

All comments can be submitted to: strategicplancomments@ed.gov.

For more information, visit: http://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/strat/index.html.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in eleventh grade. Around that time, and especially once I got to college, I also thought I’d like to become a teacher. But to me, these two careers did not seem compatible. I had read books and articles by writers who talked about how they wrote, and had even met a few professional writers and saw how they wrote, and what I saw seemed directly opposed to what I was being taught in school. Professional writers talked about discovery and surprise and spontaneity; they didn’t know what they had to say until they saw what they’d written down. “I thought I was writing X,” they said, “until halfway through, I suddenly discovered I was writing Y.” And they didn’t say this as if they considered themselves a failure; rather, they accepted this was part of the process.

In school I was taught that I should know exactly what I wanted to say before I ever set pen to paper. You decide what you want to say and then you say it, and your focus in the writing is to make sure your sentences are clear and grammatically correct. It’s a waste of time and paper – and a clear sign of failure – if halfway through a writing you suddenly decide it’s really about something different than you originally thought.

Simply put, the way I was being taught to write in school was opposite the way I was seeing professional writers write. Oddly enough, I didn’t rail at education for being wrong; I simply decided these must be different worlds, and I would have to choose one or the other.

I chose being a writer, and I left academia and worked as a taxi driver, a clerk in a bookstore, a security guard and caretaker at an 86-acre resort. I sought to teach myself how to write like a writer, by reading Flannery O’Connor’s letters, all of John Gardner, Dorothea Brande, and novels, novels, novels.

In 1986 I decided to get an M.F.A. I went to George Mason, and I discovered that in the nine years I’d been out of academia, a revolution had occurred. Thanks in large part to the work of the National Writing Project (and reflected at Mason by Don Gallehr, Chris Thaiss, and others of NVWP), students were now being taught to write the way professional writers wrote. Even more, teachers who taught writing were being asked to practice writing themselves.

Suddenly these two worlds that had seemed so opposed to each other had come together, and for me, what a revelation it was to think that I could actually become both a writer and a teacher; I didn’t have to choose one over the other.

And the great thing for me is that I am a writer AND a teacher. Those two things together make up what I do best. To only be a writer is too solitary for me, too solipsistic; to only be a teacher has meant, for me, minimizing a desire I’ve had all my life, to create something permanent of my own, to make something creative out of my own existence. When I both write and teach, I really am getting the best of both worlds. I am a better writer because I teach. I am a better teacher because I write.

A few years back, when I became able to make an annual contribution to NVWP, I spoke with Don Gallehr about an idea I had, to give money directed specifically to encourage TC’s to enhance their own relationship with personal writing. He thought that was a great idea, and the Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award was born (Don came up with the name; whenever I see it, I have the urge to go check to make sure I haven’t died and been memorialized). It’s $500 a year (I wish it could be more, and maybe down the road it will grow, but for now it’s the best I can do.) And it’s given to one TC who will use it in some way to create or extend an opportunity to do more with his or her personal writing than he or she would have done without the money. That’s really all I was hoping: that the money would help a TC spend just a bit more time thinking of him or herself as a writer – not instead of, but in addition to, being a teacher of writing.

I’ve been thrilled with the TCs who have won the award in the past, and I’ve been disappointed for those who submitted perfectly valid proposals but who did not win, because each year we can choose only one winner. Many of the proposals have been along the lines that I’ve expected – TCs going to writing conferences or festivals, or finding ways to get a little extra writing time for themselves – but I’ve also been excited when TCs have proposed unexpected possibilities. I purposely asked Don to keep the specifics vague, because I want every option considered. The only real requirement: you will use this money in some way that enhances your own sense of yourself as a writer.

That’s my hope with this award: that other TCs can feel what I have been allowed to feel, ever since (and in no small part, because of) NVWP helped me understand that I didn’t have to choose between being a writer or a teacher, but I really could be both. And because I could be both, my life has been richer than it ever would have been, had I been only one or the other.

Mark Farrington NVWP TC and Assistant Director of the Johns Hopkins MA in Writing Program

The Fourth Annual Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award

The Northern Virginia Writing Project is pleased to announce the fourth annual Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award of $500 to be granted to one NVWP Teacher Consultant to further his or her personal writing.

The money may be used to attend a conference or workshop, to take a course, to purchase books, to buy release time—anything directly related to furthering his or her personal writing. All TC’s are eligible, whether they are currently teaching, working in another field, or retired. ( Please note: This award is only available to NVWP TCS, i.e., teachers who have completed the five week Northern Virginia Writing Project Invitational Summer Institute).  

To nominate someone please send a letter of interest of no more than 250 words to Dr. Paul M. Rogers using the form below. Self-nominations are accepted and encouraged.  Deadline for applications is February 1, 2012; notification of the award is February 15, 2011; and the money must be spent by December 30, 2012.

Read “The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival: Changing My Focus to the Poet in Me” written by 2010 Award Winner and NVWP Co-Director Cathy Hailey.  The article comes from the 2010 Vol. 3 Issue of the Journal of the Virginia Writing Project.

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We invite you to register now for the 2012 Bernadette Mulholland Glaze Language and Learning Conference, which will take place at the George Mason University Fairfax Campus on March 24th.  The 2012 conference will feature keynote speaker Donalyn Miller author of The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, and will also include a wide variety of practical, hands-on demonstration lessons given by Teacher Consultants of the Northern Virginia Writing Project.  Demonstration lessons will be available for elementary, middle and high school teachers, and will cover topics including “Working with Reluctant Writers,” “Writing Strategies for ESL Students”, and “Teaching Writing with Technology.”  The registration fee is $70.00. The full conference program will be available soon.

To register now click here: Register for the 2012 Language and Learning Conference 

Donalyn Miller aka The Book Whisperer

About Donalyn Miller

Donalyn Miller is a sixth grade language arts teacher at Trinity Meadows Intermediate School in Keller, Texas. In her popular book, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, Donalyn reflects on her journey to become a reading teacher and describes how she inspires and motivates her middle school students to read 40 or more books a year. Donalyn currently writes a blog, “The Book Whisperer,” for Education Week Teacher and a monthly column for Scholastic Book Fairs’ Principal to Principal e-newsletter. Her articles about teaching and reading have appeared in publications such as Educational Leadership and The Washington Post. She is also a prolific tweeter and you can follow her twitter posts here: @donalynbooks

“Reading is the inhale and writing is the exhale,” says Miller, who is a teacher-consultant with the North Star of Texas Writing Project.  Miller says she has yet to meet a child she couldn’t turn into a reader. No matter how far behind her students might be when they reach her 6th grade classroom, they end up reading an average of 40 to 50 books a year. Miller’s unconventional approach dispenses with drills and worksheets that make reading a chore. Instead, she helps students navigate the world of literature and gives them time to read books they pick out themselves. Her love of books and teaching is both infectious and inspiring. The book includes a dynamite list of recommended “kid lit” that helps parents and teachers find the books that students really like to read.

Watch the video of Donalyn Miller’s keynote address given at the 2010 National Writing Project annual meeting.   

Click on the image below for a printable pdf flyer

2012 Language and Learning Flyer

NVWP Co-Director Mary Tedrow presenting at the Language and Learning Conference

The Bernadette Mulholland Glaze Language and Learning Conference is known for its exemplary keynote speakers, like this year’s keynote presenter Donalyn Miller, or past speakers like Jim Burke, Kelly Gallagher, and Ralph Fletcher.  Yet, we know from our post-conference surveys, the demonstration lessons provided by Teacher Consultants of the Northern Virginia Writing Project are what attendees value most. This year’s Language and Learning Conference will feature a wide range of approaches and presentations aimed at all grade levels.  Many of this year’s demonstration lessons* (see below for more information on demonstration lessons) will focus on working with English language learners, reluctant writers, and special education students.  There will be a special presentation for Administrators interested in improving writing instruction and learning from NVWP Teacher Consultant and Fairfax High School Principal Dave Goldfarb.  We will also be hosting a special lunch information session for teachers interested in attending the NVWP’s Invitational Summer Institutes.

To register now click here: Register for the 2012 Language and Learning Conference 

Teacher Consultant Presentations for the 2012 Language and Learning Conference

Presentation times and full demonstrations lesson descriptions will be available soon. 
Please note that while we have separated the presentations by grade level, we find that regardless of what the grade level the demonstration comes from there are always ways of extending and applying new strategies to our own teaching circumstances.

Elementary School:

Middle School:

High School:

*What is a Demonstration Lesson?

A demonstration lesson is more than a presentation or a talk to teachers, it is making visible to our peers what we do in our classes.  As Jim Gray, founder of the National Writing Project, wrote in his memoir of the early years of the National Writing Project Teachers at the Center,  ”The most successful demonstrations communicate not only what the teacher does but also why the teacher thinks this particular practice works. The emphasis upon the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ is important: it provides a theoretical underpinning and it accents a considered approach to writing beyond mere gimmickry” (143).  This reflective approach to teaching produces new knowledge for participants, and deepens our collective commitment to reflective practice.  Long time Writing Project Director, Sheridan Blau explains, ‎”If I tell you my idea, you know only that I have it. If I want you to have my idea for yourself, you need to experience it for yourself and my task as your teacher is to construct a venue in which you are given an opportunity to have an experience that is likely to yield for you an idea similar to the one I would have you learn.”  Many teachers report that the experiential learning they experience by participating in demonstration lessons provides them with valuable new strategies for their teaching practice.

For more information on the 2012 Language and Learning Conference please contact us at contact@nvwp.org or visit http://nvwp.org/languagelearninghome/

To register now click here: Register for the 2012 Language and Learning Conference 

About Donalyn Miller aka “The Book Whisperer”
“Reading is the inhale and writing is the exhale,” says Miller, who is a teacher-consultant with the North Star of Texas Writing Project.  A 6th grade language arts teacher at ISD’s Trinity Meadows Intermediate School in Texas, Miller says she has yet to meet a child she couldn’t turn into a reader. No matter how far behind her students might be when they reach her 6th grade classroom, they end up reading an average of 40 to 50 books a year. Miller’s unconventional approach dispenses with drills and worksheets that make reading a chore. Instead, she helps students navigate the world of literature and gives them time to read books they pick out themselves. Her love of books and teaching is both infectious and inspiring. The book includes a dynamite list of recommended “kid lit” that helps parents and teachers find the books that students really like to read. Miller is a prolific tweeter and blogger; you can read her blog here http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/ and follow her twitter posts here: @donalynbooks

Watch the video of Donalyn Miller’s keynote address given at the 2010 National Writing Project annual meeting.

Click on the image below for a printable pdf flyer

2012 Language and Learning Flyer

Mark Farrington NVWP TC and Assistant Director of the Johns Hopkins MA in Writing Program

The Northern Virginia Writing Project is pleased to announce the fourth annual Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award of $500 to be granted to one NVWP Teacher Consultant to further his or her personal writing.

The money may be used to attend a conference or workshop, to take a course, to purchase books, to buy release time—anything directly related to furthering his or her personal writing. All TC’s are eligible, whether they are currently teaching, working in another field, or retired. ( Please note: This award is only available to NVWP TCS, i.e., teachers who have completed the five week Northern Virginia Writing Project Invitational Summer Institute).  

Those interested should send a letter of no more than 250 words to Dr. Paul M. Rogers at the address below. Self-nominations are accepted.  Deadline for applications is February 1, 2012; notification of the award is February 15, 2011; and the money must be spent by December 30, 2012.

Read “The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival: Changing My Focus to the Poet in Me” written by 2010 Award Winner and NVWP Co-Director Cathy Hailey.  The article comes from the 2010 Vol. 3 Issue of the Journal of the Virginia Writing Project.

Please send letters of interest to:

Paul M. Rogers
Director, Northern Virginia Writing Project
English Department
3E4 George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Or use the form below:

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January 4, 2012

Applications for the 2012 NVWP Invitational Summer Institute are now available. Applicants may choose to apply for the Summer Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, or the Summer Institute in the Valley at John Handley High School, Winchester, VA.

NEW DATES: Both Summer Institute sessions will run from July 9th, 2012 through August 3, 2012. Read on for more details and links to printable application forms.

For thirty years, the Northern Virginia Writing Project has been training teachers to be Teacher Consultants, creating a ripple effect in improving the teaching of writing that moves across all disciplines and grade levels.

Each year, NVWP selects twenty-five experienced and talented teachers from all disciplines and grade levels to attend the intensive five-week Summer Institute. Fellows share their expertise and develop their writing abilities during the Institute, and later serve as Teacher Consultants in their schools.

At the Institute, teachers will:

• examine issues in the teaching of writing
• improve the use of writing to deepen and extend learning in all curricular areas
• present and demonstrate approaches to the teaching of writing
• study current and past research in the field
• write in various modes and from different points of view, including a position paper on teaching and using writing to improve instruction

Participants receive six graduate credts in English or Education from George Mason University, the equivalent of 180 recertification points (the minimum needed for teacher certification renewal). Most school districts will pay all or some of the tuition.

Location: George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

OR

John Handley High School, Winchester, VA

Hours: Monday – Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m
Thursday evening seminar 4:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Every Fellow will attend one session on a Friday morning (9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)

Credits Earned: Fellows earn six graduate credits in English or Education (180 recertification points). Fellows receive a $500
stipend to help with books and other expenses.

Cost: Approximately $2,000 (the cost of six hours of graduate tuition at George Mason University). Many schools and/or districts will
pay or reimburse the tuition costs.

Dates: July 2 – August 3, 2012

Applications: Apply between November and March.  March 31st is the Priority Deadline.

Acceptance: Acceptance into the Institute is by invitation only. Candidates must apply, interview, and be invited into the program.

Interviews: Applicants will be invited to interview on an afternoon in March or April at George Mason University.

Notification Date: Fellows will be notified in early May 2011. A Fellows’ dinner will be held in late May.

Click here to apply to the 2012 Summer Institute.