The following is the writing from the forward and the epilogue of POW! Power of Words, a publication at CWP-Fairfield. This is our 3rd edition and it's bigger and better than ever. A special shout-out to Caryn Sullivan for her steadfastness in getting this to press. Now, time to mail copies to the teachers and young adults who participated in this hard work.
In your hands is the 3rd
publication of POW! The Power of Words and the culminating work of CWP-Fairfield’s 2015 summer
programs. Each July and August, literacy opportunities abound and these
pages represent Connecticut youth and local educators writing their lives in Young Adult Literacy Labs and an Invitational
Summer Institute for teaching hosted at Fairfield University.
For the last several years CWP-Fairfield
has listened to students about what (if at all) they write in school.
Similarly, teachers and administrators are lamenting that test-only writing
instruction is the new norm of Connecticut schools. That is why, in 2014,
CWP-Fairfield did a formative experiment and asked three questions:
·
What if we redesigned writing
institutes into Young Adult Literacy Labs based on Writing Activity Genre
Research?
·
What if we mandated four criteria for
each lab: (1) youth will write, (2) youth will read, (3) youth will talk with
each other and (4) youth will have fun?
·
What if we invited teachers into our
youth labs to learn with the young writers?
Our emphasis has been on fun. We wanted to break down a few of the traditional walls and to restore
playfulness in in the learning process. We’ve found
success. The youth are reporting favorably about our summer programs and teachers
feel inspired by their interactions with young writers. We are getting smarter
together.
CWP-Fairfield believes in POW! The Power of Words and that young people have much to teach us.
Last year, for instance, youth participants wanted a program to write
politically and to learn digital tools. We heard what they had to say and added
a TedTalk lab and Project Citizen to this year’s program.
From listening to our youngest writers (those with the biggest imaginations), too,
we gained knowledge that they wanted to be published. For this reason, we’ve
included them in this year’s collection. The writing is passionate, playful,
intriguing and, at times, doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects. BAM!
Bryan’s Appreciative Message goes to the
152 young people who contributed creativity, opinions, and research during the
summer. It goes to Abu Bility, Lossine Bility, Steve Vissichelli, Shaun
Mitchell, Ali Laturnau, Dr. Ryan Colwell, Tom Grund, Shannon Burr, Gina
Forberg, Attallah Sheppard, Brynn Mandel, William King, Amanda Morgan, Jennifer
von Wahlde, Cecily Anderson-Cowburn, Julie Roneson, and Caryn Sullivan who, as
masked-educators, crusaded with extreme superpowers to launch:
• Little
Lab for Big Imaginations: a Young(er) Writers’ Workshop.
• It
Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Writing Your Novel
• Speak
Yourself: A Poetry and Playwriting Lab
• The
Art of Storytelling: A Graphic Novel Lab,
• Stop
the Presses! A Journalism Lab,
•
Project Citizen: Write a Wrong!
•
Ideas Worth Writing: A TED Lab.
•
Who Do You Think You Are? College
Essay & Narratives, and
•
Ubuntu Academy: The Lab for Immigrant
and Refugee Youth
Under their leadership, writers wrote their lives to express, critique, entertain, shock, educate,
wonder, explore, and propose.
My appreciative message also goes to CWP-Fairfield
partners helping to make the summer possible: a strong teacher network, our
affiliation with the National Writing Project, State Senator Bob Duff,
Fairfield University, Fairfield University Athletics, Graduate School of
Education and Allied Professions, JUHAN, the Office of Service Learning, Bridgeport
Public Schools, and LEAP – Leaders
Educated and Prepared. CWP-Fairfield can be what
we are because of who we are
together. There are few locations
in southern Connecticut where young people and teachers representing multiple
zip-codes are provided a space to learn together. We are proud of our
democratic pastiche and feel,
U gotta write
for what’s
right
& fight
with all u’r might
to insight
incite,
and to ignite
a spotlight
to put
yourself
in the
limelight,
outright &
forthright…
A’ight?
Collaboration. Thinking. Reflection. Inquiry. This is writing, y’all!
This is who we are.
KaPOW! (and Ubuntu),
Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall
CWP-Fairfield, Director
Congratulations!
You’ve
reached the finish line of POW! The Power of Words and made it to Crandall’s
THWACK-page! Sh’Zam!
The summer redesign required ingenuity and results from Crandall’s twenty-plus years of
classroom-teaching experience and writing research. THWACK! - This is How We Advance
Creative Knowledge in literacy research. We share resources with one another.
CWP-Fairfield values the importance of teachers and students, as
subjects, within writing communities. Redesigning Young Adult Literacy Labs in
2014 first began as a formative experiment (Fisher & Frey, 2009; Reinking
& Bradley, 2008) built from writing activity genre research (Russell, 2010)
and an intent to create a summer literacy model to effectively engage youth and
teachers together (Chandler-Olcott, Nieroda, & Crandall, 2014). Following
the National Writing Project’s reputation for transforming teachers
(Whitney, 2008) we embrace effective practices in writing instruction (Applebee
& Langer, 2013; Graham & MacArthur, 2013). More recently, we’ve focused on the ways that community
matters within writing activity systems and, as a consequence, have embraced a
philosophy of Ubuntu (Caracciolo & Mungai, 2009) - a Bantu word that
translates “I can be me because of who we are
together.”
A good writer (or teacher of writing) is equipped with tools, clever rules, and
a respect for individuality and personal motivations to reach written outcomes.
They must belong.
THWACK! –
One way to improve writing instruction
in our schools is to put every writer at the epicenter of his or her world
(Crandall, 2012). We need to allow them to write their lives!
Applebee, A. N., & Langer, J.
(2013). Writing Instruction That Works: Proven Methods for Middle and High
School Classrooms. New York: Teachers Chandler-Olcott, Nieroda, & Crandall
(2014). Co-planning and
co-teaching in a summer writing institute: A formative experiment. Teaching/Writing.
The Journal of
Writing Teacher Education. 4, 1.
Caracciolo, D., & Mungai, A. M.
(2009). In the Spirit of Ubuntu: Stories of
Teaching and Research. Boston: Sense Publishers.
Crandall, B. R. (2012). "A
Responsibility to Speak Out”: Perspectives on Writing From Black
African-Born Males With Limited and Disrupted Formal Education. (Dissertation),
Syracuse University.
Fisher, D. & Frey, N (2009).
Meeting AYP in a high-need school: A formative experiment. Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.5, pp 386-396.
Hillocks, George.
The Testing Trap:
How State Writing Assessments Control Learning. New York: Teachers College Press,
2002.
Graham, S., MacArthur, C. A., & Fitzgerald, J.
(2013). Best Practices In Writing Instruction
(2nd ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.
Reinking, D. & Bradley, B. (2008).
On Formative and Design Experiments. New York: Teachers College Press.
Russell, D. R. (2010). Writing
multiple contexts; Vygotskian CHAT meets the phenomenology of genre. In C. Baserman,
R. Krut, K. Lunsford, S.
Whitney, A. (2008). Teacher
transformation in the National Writing Project. Research in the Teaching of
English, 43(2), 144-187.
