Everyone arrived safely to Rough River where we began the evening creating glyphs designed to help us get to know one another. We later enjoyed a buffet dinner as party stories were shared. After dinner, Sandra shared 10 Things I Love About You, a story where two friends generate lists of things they love about one another. We were then invited to 1) generate our own lists of 10 things we love about a special person, place or thing, or 2) list 10 people, places and things we love. Next, we were invited to begin writing about one of the items on our lists. April touched us with a piece about her mother's blue dress. Jean shared the joy of baking with the grandkids. Jean encouraged us to keep a topic list tucked away in our writer's notebooks and to keep notes about the invitations that lead to entries in the notebook. She reminded us that the WNB is one of our greatest instructional resources. Patti then left us with two tasks: read Ralph Fletcher's A Writer's Notebook and the rationale for her demonstration lesson in the morning.

A hundred pages

with blue lines

that await my words:

Diamond Search

My life lies before me

Like the bed on a shallow river.

My finders sift sand and gravel

For the rough diamonds that lie hidden.

And as I find them

I put them in this notebook

I write . . . I cut . . . I polish . . .

And they shine.

My words on an empty page

In an ordinary notebook,

The silver setting for the jewels of my life.

Erika Martin

LWP XXXIII Member

Kelly Dillon, LWPXXXIII

Jean shared the mentor text about a grandfather, sharing his younger self with his grandchildren, “Song and Dance Man” by Kay Ackerman. After reading the text, the group talked about the book from a writer’s perspective. We then generated a topic idea list inspired by the text. An invitation was issued to write about one of the topics inspired by the mentor text borrowing the craft of the text. Then Jean shared the concept of borrowing craft techniques from the mentor text. The example of a snapshot was shared. Example “Faded posters of grandpa…trunk in the corner.” The role of a snapshots was explained as Entering the world of the story, Zooming in on a focal point, and Time Travel from now to then. Writers then practiced this skill in their WNB. Writers then used Response Groups to share their piece and ask a question about their piece.

Response Group

Writer

1.Come with a question.

2.Read piece/passage

3.Take notes as partners respond

4.State your next steps.

Partners

1. Note the question

2. Listen/take notes

3. Respond to just the question

4. Ask writer his/her plan, next steps

Literacy PERKS Planning Booklet

A document developed by KDE to plan out an effective literacy plan for a school.  The document can be used as a formula to develop an entire plan, to conduct a current program review, or to look for "next steps" for effective literacy instruction.

Writing Next

A large scale review of the status of 4-12 grade student writing and an outline of the general methods and interventions for improving reading instruction.  The recommendations put forth by the article and their effect size were reviewed; writing strategies, summarization, collaborative writing, specific product goals, word processing, sentence combining, prewriting, inquiry activities, process writing approach, study of models, and writing for content learning.

Best Practice Today's Standards for Teaching Learning In America's Schools

Provided substantial evidence for what, as educators, we know-all children can and should write.  The article was special for the LWP members as Kentucky received special mention for accompanying testing with a system of regional consultants to help schools were test results have been weak.

I am April Garrett. I have been an ECE teacher for JCPS for 6 years. I teach at Roosevelt Perry Elementary and serve students from K to 5th grade. I am an Western Kentucky Alumni where I hold a B.S. in Elementary Education and M.A. in Exceptional Education.

Personally, I am the oldest of three children. I grew up in South Central Kentucky on a farm and attended school in a small district and county. I am family oriented and belief that God gives us gift of family and friends that become family.

I am thrilled to call myself the mother to two AMAZING young children, Rhaegan (4) and Grayson (2). These gifts from above keep me grounded and ever so busy. I discovered my purpose in life when they were born-to be their mom. Additionally, I am the youngest of six children, all born within a 10 year span. We are a close family that still spends EVERY holiday, celebration, birthday and Sunday dinner together anchored in southern cookin', multi-layered conversations, and boisterous laughter. My life's motto: Bloom where you are planted.

All is grace,

Kelly

I am going into only my second year as an official teacher at Louisville Male HS; however, I have worked for JCPS for 12 years.  In my previous life, I managed a bookstore –fabulous work if you can get it!! The people who come to you there already know the joys of reading. I have spent most of this spring going back and forth between being majorly excited about being part of the LWP and thinking, “Oh no what have I gotten myself into?”

I have been married to my husband, Steve, for 22 years or half my life.  I grew up on the family farm in southeastern Kentucky. The photo below is from 2002 so that cute snagged toothed kid is now a 19 year old engineering student. Still it is one of my favorite family pictures. 

Personal Motto:

It will all be OK in the end. If it’s not OK it’s not the end!

I spent 10 years as a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer before getting into teaching full-time. Since I've been with JCPS, I spent one year and several summers at the ESL Newcomer Academy and also taught middle school boys at Olmsted North for four years. I just finished my third year as intermediate ESL teacher at Rutherford Elementary. I love the days when my job makes me feel like I'm still a kid playing school.

I was blessed almost 18 years ago with my daughter, Jena! She is truly my miracle, and I am so thankful for her in my life!  I am very close to my family  and spend a lot of time with them on the weekends and holidays. I am the middle child of three girls! We are all very successful strong women. We give this credit to our parents who encouraged us to work hard and  follow our dreams. They are my heroes!

I enjoy reading, writing, gardening, movies, and traveling anywhere! I enjoy the outdoors and the simple things in life. 

     If I am not teaching, I am usually doing something involving animals.  I work with Greyhound Pets of America in Louisville, Ky to find retired racers loving homes.  On the weekends, it is not unusual to see me with one or two of my greyhounds dressed up in a pet store.  I do this to teach people about these amazing animals and help find them forever homes.  I also work with Italian Greyhound rescue.  They are unfortunately a big industry for unreputable breeding and often are dumped and in need of help to find a new home. 

     Of course, I couldn't work with these phenominal animals and not have some, or many of my own.  I currently have six greyhounds, 2 IGs (Italian Greyhounds), and a host of small animals which I have also re-homed.

     I have dreamed of being an LWP fellow for some time and am thrilled beyond belief to be fulfilling my dream!

I look forward to improving myself and becoming a more participatory member of the writing community.

After collaboratively establishing norms we took a look at our schedule for the next three weeks together, getting excited about the potluck coming up at Jean's on June 30th.
Using the jigsaw method we dove into Peggy Sharp's Sharing Your Good Ideas and gained various insights into how to make our demo presentations more effective. Several people mentioned the chapter on openers and closers as particularly helpful.

A bit overwhelmed by the demo project, we had lunch and spent a good chunk of the afternoon working on our research/rough draft for the project. We met in small groups to "check in" regarding where we are in the process.

We closed the day by thinking about the direction we want our inquiry/writing plan to take during the work time we have after the completion of the demos. Signing off, we looked at the power of storytelling through Bianco Filoteo's blog (biangofiloteo.com/2013/the_importance_of_ storytelling) What story will you tell today?

Day two was jam packed with wonderful fellowship and fantastic work! Patti began our day with sharing When I was Little by Jamie Lee Curtis. Thus we wrote into our day by writing about when we were little. Some people shared and then we took one of our “When I was little,” phrases and wrote more in depth about that piece.

Then we began our day of research, writing, conferencing and getting all of our ducks in a row as we prepared for the trial runs of our demos next week. This intensive work time was followed by a refueling lunch break.

After lunch, we continued the heavy lifting required to create a meaningful, useful, timely, and grounded in research backed best practices teacher educational opportunities.  This was followed by response groups where we shared where we are in the process, our thinking and continued plans. We gave and received feedback to help make our demos fabulous!!

Today Patti began our work day with a consideration of letter writing, process, meaning, craft, and of course the inevitable practice of letter writing.  A “lost art” for some in today’s information and digital age, letter writing provides us and our students with an authentic publication opportunity.  Our activity centered around a Huffington Post article, “11 Amazing Thank You Notes From Famous People.”

We then dove into another open work session: demo, classroom writing plan, the afternoon Author’s Chair, writing, reading, and snacks.

Author’s Chair and discussion:

Patti-A Landmark’s Conscious History

Tina-Oliver

Sandra-Falling Over the Edge of a Cliffhanger

Janie-I Hate to be Late

April-The Color/Smell/Touch/Taste/Sound of Love

Kelly-A Time at the Hospital

Erika-The Best Part of Me

Aretha-I Ain’t Sayin I’m Lucky Now

Darlene-First Time Down the Hill

Patrick-Deck light Buddy

Close-How Writers Work By Ralph Fletcher

Chapter 6 Getting Past Writer’s Block

Patti introduced our Grammar Grabber with AAAWWUBBIS. (as, after, although, when, while, until, because, before, if, since) This was really interesting and cool. We use a comma to set off an AAAWWUBIS opener.  We tried this using writings from our notebook which we quickly learned was more meaningful. (handout received)

After lunch we all continued working very diligently on our various work!  At 2:45 we met in Inquiry Groups and Patti had a short closing at 3:15.

Today was the first day of demo week.  Boy, did we learn a lot!  We started the morning with Sandra’s presentation of “Because I Said So” where we explored the need for evidence to support our
decision.  In addition to learning how to help our students achieve this in their writing, we also learned content about Edison and Telsa (I just thought it was an 80’s hair band).  Who knew that the wonderful air conditioning I am enjoying now is because of Telsa and not Edison!  After that, we were enthralled with Tina’s demo showcasing conferencing with students. Her presentation was as fun and bubbly as her personality, and we all learned there is more to conferencing than just drill and questions.  You started the demo week, and you set the bar high.  After Tina, Darlene expanded our knowledge with a wonderful demo about expert writing.  While I was becoming an expert on sleep (I wish), she demonstrated to us how we could bring the expert writer out of any students.  If it works with ELLs who we learned have twice the work when they write, it will work with any struggling writer. Both our wonderful teachers enjoyed the privilege of being the first two members of our awesome cohort to be
pinned.  I was so proud for both of the ladies today.  LWP XXXIII rocks, and the evidence was in the demos we experienced today. After the demos, Sandra gave us another wonderful “nugget” of knowledge called the “Grammar Grabber”.  She demonstrated how to introduce it in the morning meeting and then how to utilize it throughout your instruction through the week. She effectively taught us how to quickly and efficiently teach adverbs through our reading and writing. We worked on our writing plans.  I hope everyone’s is coming along nicely.  Because we all talked too long in our inquiry groups (again), Patti quickly closed us with the power of words.  She shared some very thoughtful quotes that leave one to think that writing is a wonderful privilege but it comes with a
degree of responsibility too.  Words leave impressions that can affect generations.

Patti started the day by giving us a penny for our thoughts, as we continued our focus on opinion writing. We learned some interesting facts about the coin and then drafted an opinion about whether we thought the United States should get rid of the penny. Then, Patti gave us some research so that we could support our claims with evidence (or possibly be convinced to change our minds).

Next, LWP officially gained two new fellows as Erika and April presented their demos.

Erika presented a lesson on writing imaginary narratives with English language learners. She showed some great examples of her students' work and let us try our hands at using a story map.

April took the group beyond graphic organizers when she showed us how to “take an X-ray” of a text and then imitate the structure in our own writing. We thought of lots of ways the lesson could be used in our classrooms.

We got a chance to meet in writing response groups to get feedback on pieces we’re developing for our next Author’s Chair.

Lastly, Sandra closed the day by asking us think about code-switching and how we use different tones for different audiences.

The meat of our morning was spent interacting with one another under facilitators Winn Wheeler & Amy Grimm.  Topics of discussion included KCAS & the Workshop Model.  We did several interesting activities: 1) Icebreaker: Think of one word to describe LWP and then get in alphabetical order. 2) Evaluation of our assumptions by small group questioning/listening activity 3) “Silent Conversations” where we walked around the room making written remarks on examples of workshop model timelines. 

A powerful take-away from the morning is the metaphor of viewing standards as building code and the “house” as the students we desire to well-equip and train for adulthood. This idea is encapsulated in the quote, “We don’t teach standards.  We teach students.” 

Patti presented some graphs and charts related to the progression of language standards across grades.  We also imitated an example sentences, allowing us to apply language skills to create new sentences. 

After our work time we enjoyed a nice time of sharing during Author’s Chair. 

Second, Aretha presented her great demonstration on Conferencing. She read Toni DiTerlizzi's book, Jimmy Zangwow's Out-of-This-World Moon Pie Adventure. We received her hand-made journal, a moon pie (yum), and colored handouts. The handouts were used and discussed as we went through Aretha's insightful conferencing process. Aretha's quote on writing was to the point: "Know thy own writing."

Third, Kelly presented her wonderful demonstration on Writing Circles with a focus on English Language Learners (ELLs). She read us a powerful story about Maluk Chol, a survivor of the war in the Sudan. We practiced using the structure and learning strategies within the writing circle, choosing various topics to write about and share.

Both demos led us into deeper thinking and learning!

We continued to work on our other projects. We are all real Fellows now--how exciting! Yeah!!

(Photos coming)

July 1, 2014

Patti started us writing into the day with Jamie Vollmer’s Blueberry story.  A story about how a capitalist business model does not fit the educational system in the United States.  Our invitation was to write a dialog, letter, or list of questions to someone you would like to affect about education.

The day began with the story of the death of “I can’t” a teacher and her students wrote all of their own I can’t statements and then buried them. We then wrote our own I can’t statements. We transferred them to squares of toilet paper and promptly flushed them down the drain.

Then we began the first of two days of Cognitive Coaching with Maggie McGatha. We learned about the 5 states of mind and how to be aware of them when in a coaching situation.

After the training, LWP XXXIII fellows headed to Jean’s home for a potluck. There was lots of yummy food and awesome company. We bonded over fantastic conversations and  majestic views.

Boy, time flies when you are being productive.  Can you believe we only have two remaining
days of LWP Summer Institute?  I can honestly say I have been more productive as a professional in the last few weeks than any other summer break.  I cannot wait for school to start to share all the wonderful things I have learned from my LWP colleagues.  Today, we were blessed to hear Tina share what is good literature.  She raised the question, is good literature always the best thing to use in your class or do you need to add some popular and humorous books also.  She pointed out we all love to laugh and easily relate to silly, funny books even if they won’t stand the test of time.  After that we
all prepared our blurbs for the mini-conferences. We want to thank Peter Reed for his help with this task.  We then enjoyed the valuable work time (I will miss this the most) to fine tune our
demos and our writing plans.  We enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Darcy Thompson. He introduced us to the idea of the Louisville Story Program and gave us inspiration and ideas to use in our classroom. In addition, we were able to purchase the book Our Shawnee.  We got autographed copies.  It was a wonderful experience for all.  Then we met with our inquiry groups to review our writing plans.  If
everyone’s is as good as my group's, tomorrow will be fantastic!  Lastly, Patti closed us for the day with
words from Steinbeck on how to be a good author.  That is the LWPXXXIII news for the day.  See you tomorrow. 

Wow! It’s hard to believe that LWP Summer Institute XXXIII has come to a close. It’s probably safe to say the last day was bittersweet for everyone. We don’t’ have to get up at 5:30 every morning (at least for a few more weeks), but we will miss learning and sharing with our colleagues.

We started the day by choosing dates we’d be getting together over the next school, so we won’t miss each other for long.  Aretha introduced us to found poetry, which was so much fun, and we got to hear about Tina’s and Kelly’s classroom writing plans. Kelly touched everyone by bringing special gifts for each one of us, and that was just the beginning of our very special day.

After we packed up, we headed over to the Bristol, where Patti, Sandra, and Jean had surprises in store. We enjoyed some delicious food, had author’s chair and then Sandra and Patti gave all the LWP XXXIII fellows gifts that they had chosen just for them and more thoughtful goodies. We had a fantastic last day! Patti, Jean, and Sandra made it special for everyone. There were definitely some teary eyes. We are all so fortunate to be part of such a wonderful professional community and family. LWP Summer Institute is truly an experience like no other.

Today, on this rainy day, We enjoyed An opener by Patrick regarding Journals. He got us talking and
thinking about the privacy of journals and the balancing act of deciding as teachers what could be a red flag in student writing.  He gave us a website for creating secret codes for diaries. He also treated us with something tasty —animal crackers with chocolate cream, banana and marshmallow!

Patti led us in another great grammar grabber. Today’s covered chunking sentences and varying
sentence lengths. We learned about breaking down text to increase student meaning. She shared the book, Come on, rain! By Karen Hesseas well as a bibliography of resources for further study.

We all shared our writing plans for the next academic year (And Germany won 7-1 in the semifinal Worldcup).