Program Spotlight - Writers in the Schools
As Amber Caver mentioned in a earlier Living Tree post, the PTA Association voted to spend the proceeds from the 2015 Auction in three areas ranked by the results of the parents survey completed this past January. As part of the Academics & Curriculum component, auction funds will go towards the 2015-16 Writers In the Schools (WITS) program. The WITS program was previously offered in past years but was a casualty of budget cuts to public school education. This year, the second and third grade are enjoying WITS due to funding provided by OFE and the OFE PTA. It's not every third grader who is familiar with the Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda. But recently in Ms. Graeve's third grade class, Writers in the School's teacher B.J. Love brought Neruda's book, The Book of Questions, into the class. "How do I ask the flea for its championship stats?" "How do the oranges divide up sunlight in the orange tree?" These were some of Neruda's unanswerable questions. After touching on Neruda's time in exile and about the political climate in Chile when he wrote these words, Love gave the students a chance to write their own unanswerable questions. Then they got to share their writing with the rest of the class. "How old are you whenever you die?" "How do you keep water in a cage?" "What is the sound of music?" Pretty good, right? Every third grade student, along with all the second graders, are getting the chance to participate in WITS at Oak Forest Elementary. Since 1983, WITS has sent professional writers to teach students the craft of writing. In Houston, 350 teachers like Love are engaging the minds and nurturing the creativity of students. Love says he went to school for English literature, and "started writing as a way to help myself understand how it works." A graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2011, he has been teaching ever since, mostly college composition courses. "A few years ago, I kind of got tired of teaching boring things to bored students, so I began teaching creative writing at summer arts camps and totally fell in love with the kids...all of them," he said. "Their enthusiasm is contagious and it really reinvigorated my interest in teaching. I got involved with WITS just a few short months ago - my wife and I moved here in August - but the second I heard about the program, I knew it was perfect for me...and that I was perfect for it." Ms. Graeve, a Language Arts and Social Studies teacher, said that her kids love WITS. "I think that more than anything this program helps to motivate and inspire these students to write," she said. "When students are reluctant writers or don't feel confident with their writing abilities, it takes strategy to get them writing." She said that Mr. Love is able to grab the students' attention at the beginning of class through songs and read alouds. Love said that he thinks that hearing and seeing words being used as good as they can be is the best way to get those juices flowing in your own brain. "Naturally, I bring in stuff that I am super fond of, Neruda being one of my favorites, but I've also brought in some Frank O'Hara poems, a few traditional kids' books, and even a kid-friendly re-telling of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis," he said. "These 3rd graders are really smart and I know that if I'm only half-interested in something, they'll know, so I try and show them things that tend to get me excited so that getting them excited about it too comes easy." Once they are excited about it, Love gives them the opportunity to write, "He almost makes each class into a writing challenge," said Ms. Graeve. "All of the students - even the reluctant writers - feel the need to try and complete the writing assignment before the end of class." Once each student has a good collection of rough drafts to work with, Love starts working with them on the revision process. "He has been encouraging students to think about their favorite pieces to include in the anthology that will be put together towards the end of the program," said Ms. Graeve. Love says that the anthology will be in print and every student will get one that includes their whole class. "All I want is for the students to realize they have important things to say and to give them, hopefully, the patience and willingness to figure out their own best ways of saying it," he said. "At WITS, we try and do that by making language fun and removing some of those intimidating roadblocks we always seem to be putting up for ourselves."
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