Category Archives: Archive

A Conversation with Ernest Morrell

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • April 9, 2011

Photo: 2011 USN Conference Keynote Speaker Ernest Morrell

2011 USN Conference Keynote Speaker Ernest Morrell

In anticipation of the 2011 Urban Sites Network Conference, the Boston Writing Project organizing team recently spoke with author and academic Ernest Morrell, as well as the keynote speaker for the upcoming event, about bringing literary theory and popular cultural into the high school classroom. Among the topics, his his book Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding Connections for Lifelong Learning. Here is a part of their conversation.

Boston Writing Project: With the Hip-Hop Research Project at South Bay High School in Torrance, CA, you had students do research. What readings did you choose, and how did you guide students through the process? More specifically, how did you teach a research-methods course to high school students?

Ernest Morrell: The research project process is more intuitive. All research starts with a problem or question for the students. For instance, what are things in the community you would like to see changed? What role would you like to take? How would you go about answering that kind of question? They do a good job with that; they get it. They do surveys. Once we help them understand the research design, we go into the various research methods, e.g., field notes, teach them how to look at statistical databases, criminal justice data, visual sociology, and film and photography. We explore how you use these within research. Then they do research. We provide the space for students to do research, and we give them the space to create projects.

Read the entire interview courtesy of the National Writing Project site, with questions developed by the 2011 USN local host site conference planning team and the Boston Writing Project: Barbara Barros, Peter Golden, Steve Gordon, Kelly Koushan, Valerie Librizzi, Director Glenn Mitchell, Caroline Occean, Denise Patmon, Emilie Perna, Ling-Se Peet, Katherine Petta, and Team Leader Chris Tsang.

BWP Hosts 2011 Urban Sites Network Conference

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • January 15, 2011 ,

Urban Sites Network Conference LogoNurturing Student Writing: Navigating Urban Literacies

APRIL 29–30, 2011

The Colonnade Hotel
Boston, Massachusetts
Host site: Boston Writing Project

The Boston Writing Project at the University of Massachusetts Boston is proud to serve as your host for the 2011 Urban Sites Network Conference, Nurturing Student Writing: Navigating Urban Literacies.

Join urban educators from around the country to explore how we can change the way we look at literacy and what it means to be literate. Students are bombarded with learning a variety of literacies and finding a means to tap into these outlets will prove to be a vital component to education in the 21st century.

For more detailed information visit the National Writing Project’s event page.

Download and complete the registration form. The early conference registration deadline is March 4, 2011 and the standard registration deadline is April 7, 2011.

Professional Development

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • January 1, 2011

 

Photo: Peter Golden with Teacher Consultants

Co-Director Peter Golden Leading Fellows

Additional Ways the BWP Can Work with Teachers and Schools

Coaching
A BWP teacher consultant will work one-on-one with select teachers in a process whereby the writing project teacher would identify aims and questions at an initial meeting, conduct a classroom observation, and then have a post-visit conversation providing feedback to the practitioner

After School Writing and Response Group
A chance for teachers to meet on a regular basis with a BWP facilitator to share their own writing and provide feedback to each other on writing pieces.

Teacher Inquiry Group
Teachers use a classroom inquiry model to identify an educational concern that they want to observe in their classrooms. They meet regularly over the course of a year to write, pose questions, research and discuss.

Graduate Courses Provided On-Site for Schools, Districts, or Collaboratives

The Boston Writing Project offers on-site three-credit graduate courses for up to twenty-five teachers, support staff, and administrators from a school, district, or collaborative. Sites can opt to purchase a single course or the entire fifteen-credit Certificate in the Teaching of Writing in the Schools. Graduate credits will be awarded through the Continuing Education Program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Graduate Certificate in Teaching Writing

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • January 1, 2011
Photo: Teacher Writer

Summer Institute Fellow fellow writing

Program

This fifteen-credit certificate program is designed for K-12 teachers and administrators in all subject areas who want to learn strategies to strengthen students’ writing and thinking skills, develop expertise in teaching writing and literacy across the curriculum, gain a deeper understanding of literacy learning, and improve their own writing. Participants will examine current readings in composition, literacy and writing pedagogy, share successful teaching practices, develop and implement curriculum, and document the effects of their teaching by collecting and analyzing student work.

The Boston Writing Project (BWP) is part of UMass Boston’s Institute for Learning and Teaching (ILT), located in the College of Education and Human Development. An affiliated site of the federally-funded National Writing Project (NWP), the BWP has provided comprehensive instruction in the teaching of writing since 1979. Courses draw on the NWP “teachers teaching teachers” model, which research and assessment have demonstrated to be among the most effective methods for creating authentic, lasting improvements in curriculum, learning, and teaching.

Certificate Requirements

The following three core courses (totaling 9 credits) are required:

BWPEDU 501, Teacher as Writer, in which educators work on crafting their own writing in order to better understand the complexities student writers face.
EDU G 621, Teaching Writing K-12 covers practical classroom applications of composition theory.
EDU G 689, Teacher Research, a course in classroom inquiry, in which teachers reflect on their own practices in a systematic way and draft professional articles.

Participants also select two elective courses (6 additional credits) which may include:

BWPEDU 501, Writing in the Content Areas (Middle and High School)
BWPEDU 530, Teaching and Writing Poetry: K-12
BWPEDU 596, Independent Study
BWPEDU 597, Special Topics

Faculty

Instructors are practicing teachers with a minimum of five years classroom teaching experience, master’s degrees or doctorates and extensive staff development experience. They are teachers and writers whose areas of expertise include composition, special education, early literacy, reading, writing in the content areas, and ELL education. Their common ground is their affiliation with the Boston Writing Project and the shared NWP philosophy of teachers teaching teachers.

Schedule, Location, and Cost

Courses and institutes are offered as intensive two and four-week summer sessions and evening or weekend courses during the fall and spring semesters. They may be held at on or off-campus locations. Some institutes offer stipends or tuition waivers.

Applications and Additional Information

Applicants must be practicing teachers or administrators. A master’s degree is preferred. Pre-service teachers may be admitted to one or more of the courses if space is available.

Applicants may be able to transfer up to six credits from previous BWP courses (completed within the past seven years).

If you are interested in applying to the program, you may apply online through Graduate School Admissions to the Boston Writing Project.* Applications should include a letter of intent declaring your interest in the BWP Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of Literacy and Writing. The application process also requires that all undergraduate and graduate transcripts be submitted as part of your application along with an application fee of $40 for in-state residents and $60 for out-of-state applications.

(*You can also make a Graduate Academic Information Request by following the above link and clicking on request materials be mailed to you and then clicking on graduate information request form .)

BWP Teacher Blogs for The New York Times

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • December 16, 2010
Photo Amanda Brown

New York Times Learning Network Lesson Writing Team Member and BWP TC Amanda Brown

Boston Writing Project teacher-consultant Amanda Christy Brown has been teaching English for over ten years, while always serving a newspaper advisor. However, besides teaching  full-time at Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She is also one of The New York Times Learning Network’s teacher bloggers. As one of the network’s ten bloggers, Brown creates lesson plans for the blog’s English Language Arts and Fine Arts Day.

Brown is also a member of National Writing Project’s E-Team, a group of teacher-leaders who respond to E-Anthology posts each summer. A key member of the Boston Writing Project, she was recently profiled on the NWP website.

Read all of Amanda Brown’s blog posts on The New York Times Learning Network.

Technology and Writing Workshops

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • November 26, 2010
Photo: Teacher Consultants in Computer Lab

TCs at Work in Computer Lab

Saturday, December 4, from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM, BWP will be offering three continuity workshops. Technology and Writing is the theme of the day. Attendees will have an opportunity to participate in two workshop presentations, with three concurrent sessions and repeat one of them:

Jason Rickles (BWP 2010) presents “Discussion Forums and Social Networking in a Writing Curriculum.”

Valerie Librizzi (BWP 2008) leads folks through Practical Applications of Glogster,” the electronic poster webapp.

Fred Haas (BWP 2008) demonstrate “Incorporating Video Production in Your Classroom on a Shoestring,” in two repeat sessions.

The day will begin with a brief meeting where our summer institutes convened, Healey Library, fourth floor, room 031. Then participants will move to choice of first session. After a small break we will switch to the second sessions.

Come, join us for fellowship and learning. Please RSVP:
[contact-form 3 “RSVP”]

BWP & Partners Launch Charlestown High Writing Center

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • November 9, 2010
Image: Charlestown High School students at new writing center

Charlestown students working at new writing center - Photo by Sara Brown for Boston.com

This month the Boston Writing Project, partnering with University of Massachusetts Boston, the Calderwood Foundation, and Charlestown High opened the school’s new writing center. The second recipient of a competitive grant to create writing centers in Boston Public Schools, Charlestown’s new center will offer a full program including one-on-one tutoring, workshops, and more.

BWP leaders Dr. Steve Gordon and Dr. Denise Patmon have been instrumental co-coordinators of the Calderwood Foundation grant that made the writing center possible. Charlestown and Brighton are the two sites that received funding for the writing centers.

In addition to Gordon and Patmon, BWP Director Dr. Glenn Mitchell was on hand for the Charlestown inauguration. All three are appear in a recent Boston Globe article.

NWP Launches New Digital Is Website

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • November 3, 2010 ,
Image Digital Is Logo

NWP launches Digital Is website in November 2010

In addition to November being the month of NWP’s Annual Meeting, this month also ushered in the new NWP Digital Is website. Part knowledge base, part professional community, and part teaching provocateur, the Digital Is website explores the art and craft of writing, as well as associated teaching and learning of writing practices. However, this site is also designed to spark innovation and thought regarding education and culture in the new digital landscape.

A joint effort of NWP and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative, Digital Is culminates years of research and work. Focused on the art and craft of digital composition, the site is divided into four areas of focus, including a deep collection of curated work and projects from the NWP teacher network and drawing from community resources.

Teacher Consultants and more are encouraged to join the community, discuss, and participate.

History and Development

  By niharhasmukhbhpa001 • October 23, 2010
Photo: UMass Boston

University of Massachusetts Boston

Founded in 1979, the Boston Writing Project (BWP) is a program of the Institute for Learning and Teaching (ILT) in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The goal of the BWP is to work with schools and teachers to improve the teaching and learning of writing in Massachusetts classrooms, K-College. To further this goal, the BWP has conducted annual summer institutes, inservice programs and a graduate certificate program in the teaching of writing for a wide variety of urban and suburban schools and teachers.

In all BWP activities, teachers write and examine their writing processes as well as those of their colleagues and students. The teaching of writing is approached in a cross-disciplinary context which focuses on current research, theory, and exemplary practice.

The BWP is a local affiliate of the National Writing Project (NWP), the nation’s largest and most successful professional development organization for teachers of writing. The NWP, begun in 1974, now has more than 200 university-based writing project sites that span all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, providing professional development and leadership opportunities to more than 100,000 K-16 educators every year.Multiple assessments and evaluations have found the NWP/BWP professional development model to be highly effective in improving the teaching of writing by its impact on students, teachers, and schools. Both NWP and BWP have been repeatedly recognized for excellence and for the success of their efforts.

The Boston Writing Project focuses on the core mission of improving the teaching of writing and improving the use of writing across the disciplines by offering high-quality professional development programs for educators, at all grade levels, K–16 and across the curriculum. The BWP shares a national program model that includes

  • developing a leadership cadre of local teachers who have participated in invitational summer institutes in the teaching of writing
  • delivering customized inservice programs for local schools and institutions
  • providing continuing education and research opportunities for teachers.

In addition, BWP sponsors a four-week Summer Writing Project for middle and high school students. The BWP is housed in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and is constituted as a school/university partnership that identifies, celebrates, and enhances the professional role of successful classroom teachers.