A Writer's Dream

On a whim, I applied for a grant from Fund For Teachers to attend the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. You can imagine my surprise when my principal walked in on the morning of April 5th to announce to my class that I had received the grant! My nerves oscillated between excitement and fear, as I realized that I was going to have to put myself out there as a writer for the first time. This July I will be traveling to Iowa to participate in two Writer's Workshops: "Novel Bootcamp" and "Driving Through the Dark - Writing a Story in a Week".  My students are my inspiration for this trip. We are adopting Lucy Calkins' Writing Workshop next year and I thought the best way to understand the workshop model of teaching was to first be a student in a workshop myself.

Here are excerpts from my grant proposal:

Writing is a personal passion of mine. I’ve always felt that my strength lies in my ability to express myself and my creativity through written words instead of speech. I admire the beauty and meaning that a carefully crafted sentence or even a single word can convey. As J.K. Rowling so eloquently wrote, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.” (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). With this fellowship, I hope to pursue my passion for writing while helping my students refine their craft and discover their inner writer’s voice.

I have been teaching in the same small Pre K - 8 school my entire teaching career. Our school is so small that we often have single classes per grade level, which means that from year to year teachers are asked to teach different grades. In my thirteen years I have taught first, second, fourth, self-contained fifth, and both fifth and sixth grades in a middle school model. Often I have had the same group of students which allowed me the unique opportunity to see them grow across grade levels. One thing I have noticed over time is that as a school our writing instruction is not cohesive. We do not have a curriculum director at our school, which means that any curriculum writing falls on the shoulders of our classroom teachers. We do our best, but struggle with keeping instruction consistent from year to year. In general, the narrative writing I see from my fifth and sixth grade students lacks rich vocabulary, descriptive details, and has weak plot structure.

For the past three years my sixth grade students and I have participated in an online program called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Every November students and writers from around the world come together with a common goal: to write a novel in one month. In the month of October we plan our stories and students set their own word count goals. Then, once November starts, students are given class time to write, every day for the entire month. I have seen great success with this program however I want to carry it further. Once students have a created this large writing piece I struggle with how to best edit and revise with them. It is often difficult for students to push past their initial draft and develop their ideas further. They are reluctant to share their work and when they do their peers do not know how to meaningfully critique them. This is where I feel the writing workshop model will be beneficial.

As a school, we are preparing to adopt Lucy Calkins' writing workshop model. This year I received materials and training, but struggled to implement this style of teaching, which is why I would like to attend two workshops this summer at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. In this fellowship I will be a student of this teaching style, becoming fully immersed in the writing workshop model. By taking on the role of student I will not only strengthen my personal writing, but I will also gain a better understanding of the needs of my own students as I begin to use the workshop model in my classroom.

During my fellowship I plan on generating new writing pieces that I will be able to share with my students. I am also looking forward to receiving feedback and guidance on my work-in-progress novel that I started writing with my students during NaNoWriMo last year. Having my work critiqued will be a valuable experience that will help me to instruct my students to become better critics of writing themselves. Also, starting NaNoWriMo next year with a finished sample will be a beneficial example for my students and something for them to practice critiquing. I am committed to providing my students with authentic learning experiences. I’ll be able to do this by putting myself in the middle of a professional writing community and sharing that experience, and my own writing, with my students.

Throughout the workshops I will take note of the instructional strategies, writing exercises, and activities used. Through conversations with workshop instructors, I will identify ways to adapt these to fit my classroom’s needs. By the end of my time in Iowa I will have rough drafts of several lesson plans ready to implement with my students.

This fellowship will add another element to my current understanding of Lucy Calkin’s Writing Workshop model. Throughout the workshops at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival I will be required to share my own writing. This will help me gain an understanding of what my students will be asked to do. Writing is personal and it takes courage to share it amongst your peers. Putting myself in their shoes will strengthen my instructional practice so I can help my students meet their learning goals.

I am beyond grateful to Fund For Teachers for granting me this amazing opportunity to further my writing knowledge and enhance my teaching practice. This experience will take me out of my comfort zone, but I can't wait to see what I will be capable of!