CWP Leadership Council Meeting

CWP Leadership Council Meeting 3/3/09

In attendance: Jason Courtmanche, Nadine Keane, Jane Cook, Denise Abercrombie, Lynn Hoffman, Michelle Hacker

1. Connecticut Mosaic Jason showed a copy of the Connecticut Mosaic publication which was developed by the student Writing Advisors for the Writing Center at Griswold High School. He would like to see a similar publication come out of all of the tutors who are serving in the CWP-sponsored writing centers. 2. CWP Newsletter – TWR: Teacher, Writer, Researcher Alex Ramos, the new CWP intern is working on developing a CWP Newsletter entitled TWR: Teacher, Writer, Researcher. The goal is to create a new forum for the monthly exchange of ideas concerning the practice and teaching of writing. Jason asked all Program Leaders to submit a brief article, 100-250 word write ups about your programs, for this new endeavor. Submissions should include your name, when you completed the Summer Institute, your school’s name, and a short biography of up to three sentences. Please email these articles to Alex at [email protected] by Friday, March 6th. 3. Wisdom House Writing Retreat Costs Jason shared a letter from Penny Baril about the CWP Wisdom House retreat. She’s concerned because the cost for the retreat has stayed the same while the Wisdom House costs have gone up. The registration fee does not cover all of the costs. She has suggested raising the price either in two steps or in one step. The group suggested that the fee be raised once rather than twice and that it be raised to $300 starting next year so that it will cover all of the Wisdom House costs. 4. Professional Writing Retreat. Jason reported that the Wisdom House has wireless Internet access so those attending the Professional Writing Retreat in June will be able to have easy high speed internet access. 5. CT Student Writers Magazine Magazine submissions were down. Nadine estimated there were about 800 submissions. In some grades, there were not enough submissions to be able to choose an honorable mention. Alex and Amanda working hard putting the magazine together. 6. CWP Student and Teacher Writing Conference. We have our 20 presenters in a variety of genres. Nadine would like to have a songwriting workshop. Jason suggested asking Ken to switch since he is a songwriter and has produced music CDs. TO DO:  Denise will ask Ken to change his workshop topic to songwriting.  Everyone should encourage their colleagues to sign up. They can find the brochure at: http://www.cwp.uconn.edu/studentteacherwritingconf.html 7. CWP 2009 Summer Institute SI applications are beginning to arrive. Jason has received four. He is doing the paperwork to have the CWP SI written into the graduate course catalog so that English

CWP Leadership Council Meeting minutes on 3/3/09 – Page 1 graduate students will know about it and will be able to apply. Jason would like to have at least one grad student a year to attend the SI so it truly represents K-college. 8. Academy for Young Writers in Creative Writing English Grad Student and Javits Scholar Amber West would like to develop a summer academy for young writers in creative writing for urban youth. She has approached the CWP about assisting her in this. She has also expressed interest in attending a future Summer Institute and being a grad assistant for CWP before she finishes her PhD. 9. Travel for NEWP and NWP Activities Even though CWP has 4-ledger (CWP’s own PD money) and 5-ledger (NWP money) accounts for out of state travel, there are new hurdles to use in order to be able to travel out of state. Jason 10. Department Head Search Bob Tilton, the current English Department Head, is on sabbatical and will not be returning as dept. head next year. Wayne Franklin and Fred Biggs have both stepped up to volunteer to become the new English Department Head. In his talk to the faculty, Wayne praised CWP specifically for its successful work. He was at Iowa for a long time, as was current UConn President Hogan. 10. Use of NWP funds There is still NWP carryover money that was not expended from the former Director’s tenure. Jason is using this money to cover Saturday Seminars and other PD activities. 11. Quinebaug Valley Community College (QVCC) Self-Study Visit Jason was invited to participate in a self-study with QVCC. He toured the middle college and met the Director. Jason had a very good visit and discussed collaborative possibilities. They expressed interest in writing centers, possible PD, summer institute attendance, and other relationships. 12. Freshmen English (FE) Early College Experience Conference on April 1st Jenny and Nadine to present at upcoming FE conference. They will be discussing how being a CWP Teacher-Consultant can support being an Early College Experience teacher. Jason will not be able to participate because he will be at the NEWP Conference. 13. UConn Freshman English Teaching Writing Conference on March 27th Denise, Megan, Nick and Nadine are scheduled to present on a panel on high school writing centers at the UConn Freshman English Teaching Writing Conference on March 27, 2009. Jason will not be able to participate because he will be at the NWP Spring Meeting. 14. GlobalEd II Grant Scott Brown, the former director of the Teachers for a New Era (TNE) grant, is the principal investigator for the GlobalEd II grant. This is a three year, one and a half million dollar grant. They have asked CWP to participate. Jason and Michelle will be working on the GlobalEd II grant, including presenting a workshop on June 29th. Jane and/or Kelly will need to cover for Jason on June 29th in the afternoon because Jason will be running a workshop on the other side of campus. 15. Impact of Snow days Since we have had so many snow days this year, the school year is ending much later than usual. This may have an impact on the Professional Writing Retreat and on the first days of the Summer Institute. 16. Website and Logo Prototypes

CWP Leadership Council Meeting minutes on 3/3/09 – Page 2 Jason shared the new logo and some sample homepage designs for the CWP Website. The group gave feedback. Suggestions included:  They liked the greens rather than the darker colors  They liked the color-coded menu in the left-hand frame  They would like the font to be larger for the menu choices 17. NWP Spring Meeting in Washington, DC on April 1-3, 2009 This is a meeting of NWP members from around the country to urge the legislators to continue to fund the NWP. Jason will be attending. Any relevant info or documents from TCs’ or Program Leaders’ work should be forwarded to him to share with the CT delegation. 18. Advising Dual Degree Students Jason has been approved to serve as the advisor to the Dual Degree students (those who are receiving English and Education degrees). This will allow him and the CWP to have a direct impact on every secondary English teacher who will be coming out of the UConn School of Education. 19. Training for Writing Center Teachers We had an interesting discussion about writing center teachers and how to maintain high quality as we help schools develop writing centers. In the future, we need to consider designing a training program for the writing center teachers so that we have a consistent approach when developing writing centers. Such training should be made available at the fall conference. 20. Request for PD PD requests for next year are already starting to come in. Rockville High School has requested a PD session on research papers which they would like presented on Election Day next November. 21. Tech Summer Institute We talked about the possible dates for the Tech Summer Institute and discussed possible topics and other issues:  The invisible Web (searching and researching)  SmartBoards  2-3 days for Beginners/Intermediate and 2 days for Advanced  Mid-August vs. late June/early July  Virtual vs. face-to-face training  Database of online resources for teachers Jane will do some more thinking about this and will share ideas with the Leadership Council. 22. Tech Strand Workshops in West Hartford Jane got a request from a CWP TC to do Digital Storytelling in West Hartford. She asked whether we should consider offering any of the tech workshops in West Hartford. We would need to find a location that has computers available. We will discuss this when we are planning next year’s workshops.

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