May 2011

In This Issue

● Register for Advanced Summer Institute II ● Struggles and Strategies ● Encourage Students to Apply to Project Write ● Read the Spring 2011 PhilWP Journal ● Submit Writing to Summer 2011 PhilWP Journal ● Submit a Proposal for the Celebration of Writing and Literacy ● Literature Circle ● National Afterschool Matters Roundtable ● PhilWP Celebrations

Dates to Remember 7 May Struggles and Strategies, 8:30-11:00am 7 May Art Museum Partnership: Looking to Write, Writing to Look, 10:00-1:00 11 May National After School Matters Roundtable, 10:00-1:00 14 May PhilWP Journal Pre-Submission Writing and Review Day, 3:00-4:30pm 18 May Struggles and Strategies, 4:30-6:00pm 22 May Final Submission Deadline for the PhilWP Journal 1 June Deadline for Celebration of Writing and Literacy Proposals 4 June Literature Circle, 2:00-5:00pm 27-30 June Getting Ready for the Standards 29 June-29 July Upward Bound Math and Science 18-29 July Project Write 1-5 Aug Advanced Summer Institute II 1-19 Aug Summer Invitational Institute I 15-19 Aug TFA Summer Bridge Course 22 Oct 25th Anniversary Celebration

Register for Advanced Summer Institute II Summer Institute II is an advanced seminar for PhilWP teacher consultants who want to engage in or expand on a research project focused on any aspect of their teaching practice. TCs are invited to assert a perspective and embrace the intellectual art of teaching. The course theme is “Policy, Perspective, and Practice.” Participants are expected to:

● Attend 1-week course in August to develop research questions and to explore research strategies and techniques

● Attend 8 follow-up sessions held one Saturday a month ● Present research findings at the University of Pennsylvania’s annual Ethnography Forum

Participants receive 1 continuing education course unit from the University of Pennsylvania upon completion of course requirements, which is equivalent to 3 semester hours towards salary increments in the School District of Philadelphia and most colleges and universities. The course fee is $407. Interested TCs should submit a letter of interest and include a question about your practice that you would like to explore. View the 2011 Advanced Summer Institute II flier.

Struggles and Strategies Struggles and Strategies is a collaborative teacher inquiry group open to ALL Philadelphia teachers. Discussion groups are held on the first Saturday (8:30-11:00am) and third Wednesday (4:30-6:00pm) of each month at the Philadelphia Writing Project office (42nd and Locust). The Saturday discussions focus on the anchor text What Keeps Teachers Going by Sonia Nieto and the Tuesday sessions focus on sharing student work and discussing teacher practice. Join us Saturday, May 7, at 8:30am and Wednesday, May 18, at 4:30pm.

National Afterschool Matters - Spring Roundtable Attend a National Afterschool Matters Practitioner Fellowship Spring Roundtable on May 11, from 10:00am to 1:00pm at 3440 Market Street, Room 501. Please join us for presentations and discussions on research findings related to youth development and the out-of-school time field. Please RSVP by ASAP to Miriam Harris at miriamh@gse.upenn.edu.

Encourage Students to Apply to Project Write Project Write is a summer writing enrichment camp sponsored by PhilWP for students who desire to expand and improve creative and academic writing in its many forms. The camp will run July 18-29. Applicants should be in grades 6-12 for the 2011-2012 school year. The cost is $250 (includes non-refundable $20 application fee). Checks should be made payable to “Trustees of the University of Penn.” Project Write will be held in 4 locations: Center City (Community College of Philadelphia), West Philadelphia (Philadelphia Writing Project & University City High School), and the Northeast (Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush). Download the 2011 Project Write flier. Download the 2011 Project Write application.

Submit Writing to the PhilWP Journal In anticipation of the Summer 2011 PhilWP Journal, the Publications Committee is sponsoring a pre-submission writing and review day for authors on Saturday, May 14, from 3:00 to 4:30pm. Teacher consultants who are interested in publishing a piece in the Summer 2011 PhilWP Journal can bring their works in progress for feedback. The theme of the Summer 2011 issue is “Sustaining Ourselves, Strengthening Our Practices.” In addition, individuals interested in serving as reviewers and members of the editorial review board for the Journal can attend to participate in the feedback and editing process. While participation in the pre-submission writing and review day on May 7 is not a prerequisite for publishing a piece in the Journal, we encourage any and all teacher consultants to attend and transform the editing and review process into a collaborative and celebratory event. If you wish to submit a piece but cannot attend the pre-submission event, we would love to review the piece anyway; please send it to us. View the full invitation and call for submissions.

Read the Spring 2011 PhilWP Journal In case you missed it, be sure to check out the Spring 2011 issue of the PhilWP Journal. Inside you will find pieces that demonstrate the powerful and profound voices of teachers and students. Check it out here.

Submit a Proposal for the Celebration of Writing and Literacy PhilWP invites proposals for the 10th Annual Celebration of Writing and Literacy. The Celebration of Writing and Literacy will take place on November 5, 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. This one-day conference provides a space for educators to share how literacy shapes practice, students, schools, and communities. When writing a proposal, consider how you:

● Use Philadelphia resources in the classroom ● Push the boundaries with multimedia ● Help teachers navigate the mandates of core curricula ● Engage students in creative storytelling

Deadline for proposal submissions is June 1, 2011. Accepted proposals will be announced via email by June 6. All presenters will receive seven Act 48 credits (5 hours for the event and 2 hours of planning time) and free admission. View the 2011 Celebration of Writing and Literacy call for proposals.

Literature Circle All TCs are invited to join the lively group conversations with the PhilWP Literature Circle. The next Literature Circle will be held on Saturday, June 4. Two books by Sherman Alexie will be discussed. War Dances, a collection of short stories and poems was published last year and was the winner of the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel for teens published in 2007, won a National Book Award. The Literature Circle will meet at the home of Diane Waff from 2:00-5:00pm. Please email philwp@gse.upenn.edu for directions. Feel free to bring a friend and a dish to share.

PhilWP Celebrations TC Amelia Coleman, principal of WIlliam D. Kelley Elementary, was featured in a March 27 New York Times article about nutrition and health in schools. Read the article. TC David Brown, a guiding member of the Summer Invitational Institute facilitation team, will be travelling to Bahrain to teach for the summer. Wish him well! TC Rahshene Davis, principal of University Heights Charter School in Newark, was honored as the “Charter School Administrator of the Year” by the New Jersey Charter Schools Association. Read about her accomplishments. TC Sam Reed is one of four School District of Philadelphia educators selected to attend national seminars at Yale University this summer. Read more about his summer plans. TC Tamara Anderson continues to write about the issues facing our schools in her pieces for the Examiner. Read her articles here. TC Annette Sample will be participating in the NWP 2011 National Scoring Conference in Chicago from June 22-25, 2011. A contingent of PhilWP teacher consultants presented at the annual Urban Sites Network conference held in Boston at the end of April.

● TC Sam Reed presented on imagining a space where teachers and students collaborate, make stuff, document their tinkering, and disseminate their knowledge to other makers.

● TCs Ted Domers, Christina Puntel, and Geoffrey Winikur presented on using interpretive communities to exchange classroom stories and reflect on and analyze data from new teacher classrooms.

● TCs Abby, Baker, Meenoo Rami, and Trey Smith presented on digital composing practices that employ student voice to inform teaching and engage students.

● TCs Christina Puntel and Geoffrey Winikur presented on what happens when students connect to the curriculum in authentic ways.

Is there something we should include in the next issue of the UPDATE? Email philwpupdate@gmail.com to share.

The UPDATE is a publication of the Philadelphia Writing Project. The Philadelphia Writing Project, located in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, is a network of 700

teacher consultants and is a site of the National Writing Project.

Philadelphia Writing Project 4201 Spruce Street, Building 1921 • Philadelphia, PA 19104-7499

Phone: 215-898-1919 • Fax: 215-746-1784 • Email: philwp@gse.upenn.edu www.gse.upenn.edu/philwp