Archives: Best Classroom Practices
Check It Out: Executive Board Notes #
Lily Newman, our board representative from the Summer Institute Class of 2006, has provided us with notes from the most recent Executive Board Meeting. The Board has several interesting projects going. To check out the lastest, click here.
Writing to Go!
In the fall of 2005 WMWP began a venture with the Springfield Republican sharing teacher ideas and student work as WMWP teachers do whenever we get together. That has been so well received that we decided to take a small slice of this kind of sharing and put it together in a book. Writing to Go! edited by Mary-Ann DeVita Palmieri and Joanne Wisniewski, will introduce you to thirteen WMWP kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade teachers, each of whom shares with a favorite lesson or activity and some examples of student writing that were generated by these lessons.
View two sample pages from Writing to Go!
Contents:
Survival Stories by Sherril Willis
Reconstituted Stories from Key Words by Michael Silverstone
Choices Research Project by Joanne Wisniewski
I Have a Dream Poems by Wilma Ortiz
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do by Jack Czajkowski
Personal Connections Research by Pamela Howes
Limericks: A Fun Lesson for Teaching Rhyming, Rhythm, and Homophones by Kathleen Boissonneault
Fable Project by Leif Riddington
The Painted Essay by Andrea Griswold
Power, Justice, and Human Rights by Dawn Fontaine
Newspaper Project on Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck by Kathy Mouneimneh
Creative Writing as a Tool for Understanding by Bruce M. Penniman
Photograph Assignment by Joseph Calabrese
To purchase a copy of Writing to Go! send a check for $10 (which includes $2 for postage and handling) payable to the University of Massachusetts to the following address:
Western Massachusetts Writing Project
258 Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
130 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003-9269
Teachers in the Western Massachusetts Writing Project network are once again being featured in The Springfield Republican Newspaper on the first Monday of every month.
And now the features are online, too.
Click on the photo here to take you to the articles.
WMWP Co-Director Mary Farrin opened up this year’s partnership with the Pioneer Valley Reading Council’s series of workshops connecting math with writing. Mary, who teaches fifth grade in South Hadley, showed participants how to integrate games and writing with a math curriculum. Here, she shows off some of her materials.
Learn more about the PVRC’s series of workshops.
Pioneer Valley Reading Council–Math and Reading #
Join the WMWP and the Pioneer Reading Council as they team up to present a series of workshops combining reading, writing and mathematics. The series, Math and Reading, offers opportunities to explore these relationships creating digital books, exploring the MCAS open response, portfolios and math games.
This is a reminder that our annual Best Practices event is coming up on Saturday, September 30th at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
You can peruse the workshops and register for the day through our WMWP website.
Topics for the day include:
- Family Writing Nights
- Using ‘Voice’ in Writing
- Blogging for Beginners
- Using Satire and Parody
- Writing about the Real World
- and Keynote Speech by Anika Nailah, author of Free and Other Stories
We hope you can attend this wonderful event.
You can get more information about Best Practices through this link.
WIKI! Conference on Writing, Technology and Teaching #
Did you attend the Conference on Writing, Technology and Teaching at UMass-Amherst? Post your thoughts and reflections at the conference wiki. Or do you just want to know what the conference and wiki are all about? Head to the wiki and learn more.
(WMWP Co-Director Mary Farrin enjoys clay character creation in a workshop. You can view the digital movie made by the teachers. The Garden Party movie (2 MB) — You will need Windows Media Player to view this movie file.)
Buzzards Bay Spring Conference and Book Fair #
Attend the Buzzards Bay Writing Project at UMass Dartmouth’s
3rd Annual Spring Conference
“Writing Lessons from the Classroom”
Saturday, March 25, 2006 in Marion, Massachusetts
Key Note Speaker:
Tom Romano
For more info on the conference click here or visit the BBWP homepage.
Get Published!–Teachers Teaching Teachers #
Bobby Richardson, a teacher at Bellamy Middle School in Chicopee, shares his thoughts on the WMWP’s Get Published workshops.
As a newer teacher in the field, it is refreshing and comforting to know that teachers enjoy teaching other people out of the classroom. I witnessed that in our last meeting.
Brochures, calendars, Norma’s project idea and Colin’s haiku project for future use in the classroom. These were just a few of the great ideas that had been mentioned from the teachers in our last Get Published meeting. The motto “Teachers teaching Teachers” rang true throughout the session.
Click here to read the rest of Bobby’s post.
Upcoming events and programs #
Throughout the year, the WMWP offers teachers countless opportunities to foster community, creativity, and professional development. Upcoming events and courses include:
2005 Teachers as Writers Contest–it’s not too late to submit your wirting! November 30 is the entry deadline.
Think Spring! Plan to attend the Teachers as Writers Retreat, held April 28-30, 2006 at Jiminy Peak Resort in Hancock. Click here for more info.
Think Summer! Take part in the WMWP Summer Institute. Meet other like-minded teachers and earn professional development points. For more information on the Institute and how to apply, click here.
Floris Wilma Ortiz Receives 2005 Pat Hunter Award #
Floris Wilma Ortiz, a teacher of English Language Learners at Amherst Regional Middle School, was presented the Western Massachusetts Writing Project’s 2005 Pat Hunter Award at WMWP’s annual Best Practices in the Teaching of Writing conference in Amherst on October 1.
To read the press release and see pictures of Ortiz and past Pat Hunter Award Winners click here.
A Reflection on Get Published! #
2005’s Get Published! met for the first time October 17 on the UMass-Amherst campus. Get Published!, led by Leif Riddington and Pamela Howes, is a series of seven workshops designed to help teachers bring a publication project into their own schools.
Participant Bobby Richardson, a teacher at Bellamy Middle School in Chicopee, says of his first Get Published! workshop, “The amount of knowledge and motivation in that room that night was exciting. Just what a ‘rookie’ teacher would hope would be there.”
Click here to read the rest of Bobby’s reflections on Get Published!
Conference on Writing, Teaching, and Technology, K-College #
Call for Proposals for the Conference on Writing, Teaching, and Technology, K-College, to be held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on April 7 & 8, 2006.
The conference, co-sponsored by the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, will bring together teachers of writing from across the region and across grade levels to share ideas, methods, and projects on the question of “How has technology affected writing and the teaching of writing?”
This will be an intimate conference, allowing presenters and attendees to share their methods and ideas for integrating technology into their writing pedagogy. Massachusetts teachers can earn Professional Development Points for conference attendance and/or participation.
Click here to read the Call for Proposals
For more info on the conference and how to register, visit the conference website: www.umass.edu/english/WTTConf.
Photos from this year’s Best Practices workshop are now online. To take a look, follow the links below:
Links to Literacy: A WMWP/PVRC Collaboration #
A new partnership between the Western Massachusetts Writing Project and the Pioneer Valley Reading Council gets underway, as teacher-consultants Sara Palmer and Kevin Hodgson present a workshop about their Flat Stanley Pen Pal Project to more than 100 participants.
Partnership with Springfield Republican #
The Western Massachusetts Writing Project has developed a new partnership with the Springfield Republican newspaper. The newspaper will be highlighting work by WMWP teacher-consultants and their students each month for the coming school year.
It’s a Flat, Flat World: A Pen Pal Adventure #
Elementary teachers Sara Palmer of Springfield and Kevin Hodgson of Southampton teamed up to create a pen pal project based on Jeff Brown’s novel Flat Stanley. Read more.
