Convening+on+the+River+Walk+12-12-08

12-12-08 =Convening on the River Walk =  So we were a week early for the [|Christmas lights] on the [|River Walk] in [|San Antonio], and a cold and windy front moved in that chilled us and threatened to sweep us away at times, but we still had a nice time at the [|National Writing Project] and [|National Council of Teachers of English] Annual Meeting.

I was accompanied by our Technology Liaison Jane Cook of [|EASTCONN], and Teacher Consultants Nadine Keane from [|Griswold High School] and Denise Abercrombie of [|E.O. Smith High School]. Michele Hacker from [|East Hartford High] met us there. I also brought along two graduate assistants, Mary Isbell, who is a [|Ph.D. candidate in English], and Katrina Bafumi, who is in the fifth year of the [|Integrated Bachelors Masters Program] in English Education. They are both working for the [|University Writing Center] this year, and do most of the work to coordinate our Writing Project/Writing Center Collaboration. Right now we have writing centers at Nadine and Denise’s schools, as well as at East Hartford High School, where our TC coordinator is Nick Chanese, from the Central Connecticut Writing Project. The CCWP sent Nick to the Convention so he could join us on the Writing Center/Writing Project panel on Friday afternoon. We were joined by [|Rich Kent], Director of the [|Maine Writing Project] at the [|University of Maine], Thomas Ferrel of the [|Greater Kansas City Writing Project] at the [|University of Missouri-Kansas City], and Ted Domers and Stacey Carlough from the [|Freire Charter School] in Philadelphia. Ted is a TC of the [|Philadelphia Writing Project].

After a slow start we had a great panel discussion. Rich has been running a collaboration like ours for years now, and published a great book called //[|A Guide To Creating Student-Staffed Writing Centers Grades 6-12]//. His most successful collaboration has been with his former student Ian Carlson, a Connecticut native by the way, who teaches English at [|Brewer High School] in Brewer, Maine. Ian brought his students to UConn this past October for our first annual //[|UConn Conference for High School Writing Centers]//. Tom Ferrel has been coordinating similar projects among the UMKC Writing Center, the GKC Writing Project, and a college prep charter school in Kansas City. Ted and Stacey, a Social Studies and an English teacher, began their school’s writing center last year, and have been running it successfully during lunch waves and after school.

One of the most fascinating things about the panel was being able to see the variety of ways the different schools, writing centers, and writing projects have configured their writing centers and their working relationships. One approach could never work for all schools, and its great to see how flexible all the writing centers and writing projects have been in their approaches to the collaboration. We all got many great ideas from one another. But this panel only consumed ninety minutes of one day. We all spent the rest of the time attending other panels run by the NWP or the NCTE. There was a lot of socializing and networking. I’ve gotten to know several of the folks affiliated with the [|Western Massachusetts Writing Project]. This March they’ll be hosting the annual [|New England Writing Projects Meeting], which will be held at the [|Hotel Northampton] in [|Northampton, Massachusetts]. I have to pay close attention to what and how they run this conference because the CWP-Storrs will be hosting the NEWP Meeting in 2010!

We also took time to go out to dinner together as a site and then again with the folks from the other Connecticut sites. The CWP-Storrs group had great Tex-Mex food on Thursday night at a place called [|Azuca Nuevo Latino], and the following night we were joined by the crew from Central at a place called [|Rosario’s]. Azuca’s was decorated with hand-blown glass chandeliers made by the members of an [|arts collective] housed behind their restaurant. Saturday night the grad assistants coaxed us into going out dancing. Many people wouldn’t be coaxed, and some only made it a couple of hours, but a few of us, myself included, stayed out very late. All the dining and dancing was a lot of fun, but it was also great to bond with so many terrific teachers. I found it especially exciting to have the grad assistants along with us because they are just at the beginnings of their careers, and had never attended a conference of this magnitude before. Both were excited, energized, and energizing. I felt that the veteran teachers and the young women just beginning learned much from each other. Even on Saturday night, Nick and I found ourselves in a lengthy conversation with Katrina in a booth in the bar, talking loudly above the music about all her ideas and plans and hopes for her career. I had a similar if more quiet experience Sunday morning with Mary when the two of us chose to take a walk around the city, get out of the tourist area and the convention centers and see some of the city itself.

Later that day, just before checking out and heading to the airport, several of us took a [|riverboat tour] along the [|beautiful San Antonio River] and learned from the tour guide that it was one young architect named [|Robert Hugman], a public school art teacher named [|Emily Edwards], and a school and library board member named [|Rena Maverick Green] whose efforts in 1926 managed to save the river and all its beauty from being buried beneath the city, like the ill-fated [|Park River] in Hartford. I think we all felt a little pride in that, and it was an affirming way to end our visit.

I’ll be taking a break from this column for the next few weeks while the university is on break and I complete the Continued Funding Application for the NWP. I hope those of you who have been reading my weekly posts have enjoyed them and continue to read in the spring semester. Please share the column with other teachers and help people to become familiar with the CWP and all the great work we do. Happy holidays, and I’ll see you in January.

To respond to this post, click the **Discussion** tab above.