UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIAMERCED

WRITING PROJECT

7th Invitational Summer Institute

for Teacher Leadership Development

2007

Daily Journaling for 20 min.

• Good writing teachers always write themselves.

• The Daily Journal is a good place to experiment with new ideas, clarify ideas, and store ideas for later development.

Journaling Practice• Journaling is not

fluff writing. It allows for thinking and processing time, building comprehension of new and old information.

“Let me see what I think.”

Writing and reading the Daily Log . . .

• The Daily Log is a record of each day’s events.

• Writing a Daily Log teaches note-taking and note-making strategies as well as the opportunity to be creative with report writing.

• Log keepers can experiment with many genre such as letters, stories, poems, songs, news articles, plays, myths, and so on.

Good writing instruction is not magic. It is knowing what works, when it works, and why it works. Good instruction can only come from a teacher who writes.

Best Practice Demonstrations• Demonstrations of best

practices is the core of our Leadership Training Institute for Fellows.

• Our demonstrations begin with a biographical “introduction” of the presenter from an interview by a another Fellow.

Teaching Demonstrations

• Showing and discussing student work is an integral component of best practice demonstrations.

“This is what my students were doing. This is what they do now.”

Fellows Actively Participate In All The Presentations . . .

“…and do you know what happened to that little bird?”

“It all started when….”

Collaboration encourages growth during the writing process.

• The composing process requires reader- feedback of the ideas expressed and discussion of how to best express those or other ideas.

• Composing is a shared literacy event between writers and readers.

Writing Groups: Respond, Revise, and Edit

• Fellows write and revise “4” five-page essays during the institute.

• Writing groups give feedback through questions & suggestions.

• The types of writing varied from personal to professional– *narrative *expository/informational*persuasive/argument *position paper

To Be Successful, Writing Groups Require:

• Building Trust• Being Honest• Pointing out

what works• Reading closely

to identify development opportunities

• A writer who is willing to consider a reader’s needs.

Reading, Writing & Discussing Research in the Teaching of

Writing

Fellows read and discussed three books, and numerous articles and reported on a fourth book from our library cart—all written about the teaching of writing.

Literacy and Intellectual Literacy and Intellectual DevelopmentDevelopment

“Reading, writing, and discussion form the foundation for a well-equipped mind: the key to equity, access, and economic opportunity. They will mightily promote achievement gains even as they help to make school, in Ted Sizer’s words, a “thoughtful place,” a more relevant, interesting, and therefore educational place.” (Schmoker, 2006)

Of the three, writing is the least attended too!

Graduation Day!From Fellow to Teacher Consultant

The UC Merced Writing Project

A California Writing Project Site &

Affiliate of the National Writing Project

Opportunities AboundContinued growth for educators requires meaningful professional development. UC Merced Writing Project offers many such opportunities throughout the year.

Leadership Opportunities for Writing Project Teacher Leaders

• Workshop Presenter

• Inservice Coordinator

• Teacher Research Group Member

• Writing Group Member

• Book Study Group Member

• School Partnership Coordinator or Coach

• Special Interest Study—– ELL Network – Embedding State Writing Standards– K-2 Network– ISAW Network

• Advanced Summer Institute Participant• Returning Fellow

Thank you for your support!

UCMWP is about Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Please call us for professional development to improve the teaching and learning of writing. We educate teachers to make smart choices about how to teach by developing their knowledge-base of composition theory and examining best practices through classroom research.

We are a NCLB authorized agency.