Western Massachusetts Writing Project’s (WMWP) Summer Leadership Institute is a true inquiry program – our experience is deeply shaped by the cohort. The centerpiece of the two-week course is the Teacher Inquiry Workshop where participants get to explore a question related to their teaching practice through in-depth research and reflection. These projects are central to the experience.
We learned so much about various aspects of teaching because of what each of us brought to the table. The program is also shaped by where we are in our professional lives, what our institutions are asking of us, what our skills are, and where we want to grow in our practice. There’s something very temporal about it, contingent. We will never have it quite like this again.
I’m a veteran of both western Massachusetts and New York City Writing Project programs at this point in my career, and the worst thing about the WMWP Summer Leadership Institute is that it lasted only two weeks. I think all of us were hungry for more when we finally parted ways in July. This is in fact the magic of any Writing Project program — it’s all about the people you work with.
The focus on the teaching of writing is so important because in my experience, so many teachers of English are unprepared to teach writing, and so resort to formulas and prescriptions that may help students churn out standardized paragraphs, but do little to stoke their creativity and imagination.
I think the folks that participated in this program would agree. The way the program was structured was also indicative of its philosophy because we all got to contribute something from our own interest in the form of our inquiry projects.
Madison, who is somewhere early in her career, is already putting up a writing center in her school, and she used her teacher inquiry workshop to move that project forward. Her presentation was inspirational. I can use some of what she shared with us to help shape Hub Help, which is my school’s version of a writing lab (though it’s more expansive, having started with math help, and yet somehow also more narrow than the vision Madison explored).
Therese’s project taught me about translingualism, which resonated with me as a bilingual writer. And who wouldn’t want their students to read for pleasure?
I can’t wait to hear more about how Jeanette’s project is developing, as she shifts the culture of reading at her school.
Rebecca wants to start a robust choice-driven companion to her whole-class AP curriculum, and by learning about Miro from Jeanette, she feels she’ll have the resources and the structure to pull it off.
Jacqui showed us how to create meaningful, authentic assessments for language learners while also building community. I’ll be implementing portfolios in some of my classes this year, and the teacher inquiry workshop was the perfect way to kick-start that process.
So, how did everyone’s projects impact me? I like to be reminded that there are infinite ways to approach teaching, and that each teacher brings her own perspective, interests and skills to the classroom, which in turn impact our students in diverse and exciting ways. It is not a cookie-cutter kind of experience, where a program is transmitted to teachers who then replicate it in their classrooms.
I sometimes need to remind myself that this is unusual in our world of corporate packages and canned curricula.
We may never have it quite like this again, but that’s precisely why I keep coming back.
Michelle Koza has been teaching English since 2008, starting her career in NYC public schools. She has been working in independent schools for the last 10 years, and recently became chair of the English Department at Bancroft School in Worcester. Michelle has been a member of the Writing Project network since 2018. In addition to being a teacher, she is also a poet and visual artist.