MayaWest Writing Project

As soon as I entered the room in the morning with the breakfast goodies, there were conversations going on all around. Some were talking about parenting and how children can be slick learners and manipulators, so I couldn’t say much there, others commented on how the government seems to be at it again, corruption that is, and how some have had their incentive money tweaked for shady reasons. Some minutes later we were at our improvised “round table”, which evoked an image in my mind of the knights who sat at Arthur’s round table, looking at each other and where everyone was an equal, just as we were, except ours is rectangular.
We had three of our newest members present themselves to us, one of which was Madeline, another teacher from the WALKS gang, who had an expression worth millions on her face when she was told what our first writing topic was: “If you were to die today…”. Soon comments and questions fired off like Chinese fireworks; Pete asked about what WALKS meant, some commented on how relevant writing is for other subjects such as science, and others shared the accomplishments they have had with their students in various grades doing things from illustrated books to weather reporting. Then Alma, another one from the WALKS gang, said ‘the best writers you’ll find around are the first graders’, to which some added embarrassing anecdotes where children say too much, or as in Angela’s case, when Moms say too much.
After hearing Jennifer’s eloquent account of the first day’s happenings, conversation shifted towards the importance of implementing reflexive activities in the classroom, which as Abi well put it, helps students remember a lot more and even become hyper corrective of the teacher, to which Hector mentioned how he learned to not be afraid of being vulnerable in front of students and how he got students to become more involved in poetry as they saw he was equally involved in the works and activities. I liked what Ariana mentioned, that “being vulnerable makes us more real”, and as Abi said, we have to sometimes lower ourselves to the students level in order to motivate them, and this can translate into students generating ideas by themselves. While we were so involved in this conversation, to the point some of us started spelling out punctuation marks, someone noticed the custodians were munching on our breakfast.
During the short break before moving on to discussing the “how to’s, again, conversations flourished here and there all around me, and they ranged from current events such as the inabilities of authorities to deal with mentally disordered patients on the island, to the origin of Zenaida’s last name and the weird absurd names fathers come up with for their babies. While Peter and Abi had a conversation at the front of the room which would seem more like an argument to someone who doesn’t know them, and Vanessa moved here and there cutting, pasting, fixing and coloring like a busy bee going back and forth to the hive, I took a chance to try the omelet, which by the way was the most delicious gastronomical sin I’ve tasted.
Questions arose regarding the demo we have to prepare, and the literature we have to include as support for it, some shared what they’ve been doing and where they have been searching, and we looked at the NWP website as a possible source of readings for this task, and Melissa concluded stressing how important it is to validate our research with readings, as this will serve as justification and support later on once we go off disseminating our knowledge. Then we moved on to feedback, where it was stressed how we can give better feedback if we are more specific, take notes and give it “con carino” , and then Melissa shared the fishbowl technique with us and how we can improve how we give feedback by having others observe how we give it. Then we moved on to response groups, and Ellen, completely voiceless, shared how this helps a lot in terms of providing us with a trustworthy audience, and how it helps her students surface the mistakes in their essays by sharing their little bits of knowledge with other members of the group. Both shared with us the “Bless, Address and Press” philosophy when deciding what to do with our piece of writing. Just before going to lunch we had Abi share his memoir, and he told us how this experience helped him better understand his students, since they have to go through these type of experiences in their lives.
When we got back from lunch, we had freewriting time, which is when I took off on a trip to memory land and almost forgot I was the scribe, everyone seemed so busy and involved in the task, as was I. Peter’s Lego Indiana Jones t-shirt brought me some memories of my own Lego adventures which took me further in my trip. Later we began discussing the Teacher inquiry and how it would help us later on in our studies and researches, and we wrote for that as well. Soon, conversations, comments and sharing took place as some talked about their frustrations with administrators, or should I say the Idiots up there? But, Ellen and Melissa helped us see how this could actually go far and promote some change, even if its from top down, and how important it is to get supervisors involved in this too. They stressed how important it is that in order for this to happen we have to make this grow steadily, so we don’t burn out, but rather sustain our energies. We went on to creating accounts at the NWP website and took a guided tour through the website basics.
Finally, we concluded as usual with the Author’s chair, and we had the pleasure of hearing Angela’s experience with nature and how this evoked emotions of closeness to the creator through its creation, and we also listened to a touching piece from Marie, and how she decided to modify her mother’s tracks and make some of her own by not just assuming her children love her, but by openly expressing it to them.