Our team of teacher leaders working on the i3 grant that funds a scale-up of C3WP (College, Career, and Community Writers Program) in North Dakota is in Dallas February 6-9th to learn about changes to the C3WP professional development program in teaching argument writing. We are practicing the principles of the National Writing Project--one of which is the belief that in order to teach writing well, we should engage in our own practice as writers. That means we write into the day and out of the day and in response to reading. One text we read an excerpt from Collet's (2019) Collaborative Lesson Study: ReVisioning Teacher Professional Development about the nature of understanding. We read and annotated this excerpt, made two-column notes about what understanding is and is not, and then wrote a short piece using this format for a kernel essay:
Here is what Kathy Rueger (Instructional Coach for the Langdon area) wrote:
First, I thought writing could be taught with a formula of one size fits all. If the grammar was perfect and the paragraph structure was correct, then we had a sufficient piece of writing. Then I learned how much writing is a reflection of who we are, what we have experienced, what we have read, and how we internalize the information presented to us. We put our hearts into our writing even if it is expository nonfiction; the things we select for inclusion depend on the previously mentioned elements of who we are. Now I understand that I lead, not direct, the instruction of writing. It is a journey that is guided by the student writers as they navigate sources, experiences, each other, and the world around them.
Our North Dakota C3WP Team writing together in Dallas. Kathy Rueger is in white.
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