FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Teachers Gain Insight, Learn Techniques at Writing Project Invitational
Attending the 2007 invitational of the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project were, back, from left, Joyce Pennington, Walker Elementary, Springdale; Marilyn Sadler, Wells Junior High, Greenwood; Chris Goering, a member of the curriculum and instruction faculty who met with the group; Tina Hoisington, Old High Middle School, Bentonville; Jennifer Ford, Gravette High School; and Joe Betz, Woodland Junior High, Fayetteville. On the front row are the directors, from left, Anne Lane, Ramay Junior High, Fayetteville, Mike Thomas, Ramay; and Jamie Highfill, Woodland.
Would students learn that history is about much more than dates, people and places if they take these facts and put them into a narrative – write a play or a poem or compose a letter that delves into a historical figure's actions and feelings? Would the students gain a deeper understanding of their country's beginnings by expressing themselves through writing based on these facts?
Joe Betz hopes to find out this fall with ninth-grade students in his American history classes at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville. Betz was one of five teachers chosen to take part in an intensive, four-week writing workshop this summer on the University of Arkansas campus that ended July 19.
Samuel Totten, professor of secondary education, established the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project in 1997 in the College of Education and Health Professions. Part of the National Writing Project based at the University of California at Berkeley, the writing project's seven summer workshops include the by-invitation-only session completed this year by Betz, Jennifer Ford, who teaches high school journalism, speech and college comp at Gravette, Tina Hoisington, who teaches fifth- and sixth-grade literacy at Old High Middle School, Joyce Pennington, who teaches first grade at Walker Elementary School in Springdale, and Marilyn Sadler, who teaches eighth-grade social studies at Wells Junior High School in Greenwood.
Each teacher conducted research, wrote and discussed their work in feedback sessions with the others, and shared demonstrations of best teaching practices. Local authors visited each week to share their insight. Anne Lane, English and speech teacher at Ramay Junior High School in Fayetteville, Mike Thomas, drama and history teacher at Ramay, and Jamie Highfill, English and reading teacher at Woodland, directed the invitational workshop.
Lane, Thomas and Highfill previously participated in the workshop. Fellows of the invitational develop a network of colleagues committed to the goals of the writing project, and upon successful completion they become teacher-consultants with a responsibility to share what they have learned in their schools and communities.
Writing Across Curricula
Betz belongs to the Life Writers group facilitated by the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale. In addition to writing about his family, he writes poetry.
"In history class, students traditionally write essays and research-type papers," he explained about his interest in expanding his knowledge of writing. "I wanted to learn about other types of writing I could use in my classes. There is an emphasis on learning content in history, but these genres engage the students and encourage them to be more creative and take a closer look at history."
Students can take details they learn about a historical event such as the American Revolution or the development of the cotton gin and put them into narrative writing such as a monologue or a short play.
"They can assume the character of the historical figure and make their story fit the time period," Betz said. "This method extends their understanding of the historical era, gets them into what people thought and believed."
Ford plans to incorporate more writing into her speech classes as preliminary steps to the final product. She also believes the exchange of ideas that the teachers used in the invitational would work well in the high school classroom.
"I want the students to interact with the material, instead of just listening to me," she said. "I want them to get peer response before they deliver a speech in a formal way."
A student of Totten's in the past, Ford said she was particularly interested in taking the workshop this summer because she's also teaching college comp courses in which students can earn both high school credit and credit at NorthWest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville.
"I've gotten excellent ideas in research and readings that will prepare me to prepare them for scholastic writing in college," Ford said.
Research the teachers undertook ranged from writing a letter to the Arkansas Department of Education to creating a PowerPoint presentation to educate parents of first-graders about how they can help their children learn to read. Ford's research entailed compiling a list of 15 Web sites that offer helpful writing strategies for teachers who are not English teachers.
The writing project encourages writing across curricula, Ford explained.
"Writing is different on the secondary level because each teacher has a specialty, unlike the elementary level, where teachers teach multiple subjects," she said. "For instance, a biology teacher may not know how to use writing to increase understanding of content. I'll take what I learned back to the school and share it with my fellow staff members."
Business of Writing
Robert Ford, author of The Student Conductor, talks with teachers attending the 2007 invitational of the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project about My Father's War, a drama he wrote based on his father-in-law's experiences in World War II, and about the new novel he's writing.
Robert Ford's first novel, The Student Conductor (Putnam 2003), not only won awards but was reviewed favorably by both other authors and music conductors. The Fayetteville novelist and playwright is a perennial favorite at the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project's summer invitational. He spoke to the small group July 6 about working on the first draft of his second new novel, but he also described two highlights of his writing life that occurred in the past year. His play The Fall of the House was selected by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival for development as part of the Southern Writers Project, and a public reading of My Father's War, a drama based on his father-in-law's experiences in World War II, was staged by TheatreSquared.
He and his wife, Amy Herzberg, a professor of drama at the University of Arkansas, are part of a group that co-founded TheatreSquared, the area's newest professional theater company. Amy Herzberg portrayed her 19-year-old father landing on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day on stage at the Walton Arts Center in May. The play is slated for full production by TheatreSquared next spring.
While writing can be a lonely business that requires immense discipline to stay focused, having others read your work is essential, Ford told the teachers. As a novelist, he writes, has someone he trusts read and comment on the work and then rewrites, sometimes numerous times, before attempting to sell his writing to a publisher. Once purchased, the work goes through additional editors and rewrites.
Similarly, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival gave Ford the chance to go over his play with excellent actors for revisions and to see the reaction of an audience so that additional changes may be made.
"Plays live in the actors, and the playwriting process is collaborative," Ford said. "We spent five hours a day for five days together, and I rewrote the scenes at night. It was like sculpting and sculpting."
When writing a novel, Ford said, he knows the basic story but not every detail at the beginning.
"If I knew everything that was going to happen, I would have a very hard time writing," he said. "In fact, I couldn't write, although I know the last scene. Something will redeem (the main character) in the last scene, and at a certain point I'll know that."
Editing, while necessary to improve a story, can be tough on the writer, Ford said.
"The editor sends back a manuscript with queries, they call them," he said. "To the author, these range from paper cuts to huge stabs in the heart. They put parentheses around things and this is to ask you, 'Why is this here?' Sometimes it felt like parentheses around my heart, around my kidney.
"But I learned to interpret the queries as 'Let's fix it,' instead of 'Throw it out.' I keep in mind that no one is as much an expert on the book as I am. I can't please everybody, and everyone will have different ideas. If I don't please myself, I would definitely be making a mistake."
To learn more about the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project, please visit http://cied.uark.edu/2692.htm.
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
(479) 575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu