Working on a List

I'm doing my best to check items off of my To-Do list. Today, I sent a draft of my article off for faculty review, I emailed off my OPI materials, and I renewed my IRB application. I've got a variety of projects that I can work on this semester, but they are coming at the expense of other duties. In addition to projects and teaching, I ought to be doing more to train and support our teachers, but that isn't really happening. At this point I'm mostly expecting teachers to figure it out by working together or reaching out to me proactively. Hopefully I will catch up with my projects and book in time to support teachers.

The ELC Writing Teacher News

When I started my full-time job last fall, I looked for a way to encourage professional development reflection in teachers. I also needed a way to help teachers feel that my observations in their teaching was meaningful. Although I am still looking for opportunities to improve both these goals, I have found some successful in the ELC Writing Teacher News.

What is it? It's a once or twice a semester newsletter that I use to communicate with teachers. In the first issue, I included one paragraph highlighting each writing teacher. I discussed one teaching idea that I learned during my observations of the teachers. I hoped that this would help the teachers in multiple ways:

• Help them to recognize that I paid attention during their observations
• Build their confidence by praising aspects of their teaching
• Encourage them to discuss and collaborate with one another

In addition, I hoped that it would help me exercise my writing skills, especially with a more specific and applied audience than most of my schoolwork writing had been.

I also used the newsletter to highlight particular themes in the teaching of writing, such as helping students to avoid plagiarism. This past week, as I was reviewing my notes from the Writing Matters seminar, I felt it would be valuable to synthesize my learning into the latest edition of the ELC Writing Teacher News. So, even though I am not working full-time this term, I am hoping to stay in contact with the teachers whom I serve, by sharing with them the professional development opportunities I am experiencing while I am "away."

Not only does this have the benefit of communicating with teachers, but I have found that it helped me better understand what it is that I learned last week:

Writing about it helped me learn it.

This key idea is a concept that Gary and Beth tried to communicate in the seminar last week, but I'm not sure I reallyt got it until I did it for myself. It's also an idea that is developing in my IPT 692R course: we learn by writing. It's a basic, and yet remarkable idea. Writing is more than just communication to the audience. It's also reflection and learning on the part of the writer. Makes me glad to be a writer. And a writing teacher.