While most New Trier Township teachers were beginning their summer plans on June 14, a group of 80 language arts and English teachers from across the seven New Trier districts convened to attend a two-day institute entitled “Crafting Writers” hosted by New Trier High School at its Northfield campus.
The institute provided time for teachers to learn about the central role that revision plays in the writing process, and to have time to align their writing expectations across grades and districts with Illinois’ new Common Core State Standards in writing.
The first day of the institute included sessions on enhancing student creativity, fostering a love for writing, providing comprehensive vocabulary instruction, building rhetorical strategies and delivering effective feedback. Presenters included Barry Lane, a professional writer and teacher who has presented hundreds of workshops nationally on enhancing student voice and encouraging revision; John O’Connor, a teacher at New Trier and author, who provided guidance on how to effectively engage student learning through feedback; and Paul Ruffino, a teacher at Central School in Glencoe, who provided a workshop on the research and methods behind building academic vocabulary skills.
The second day focused on district articulation, mixing a variety of teachers from across grades and schools to discuss writing. Teachers applied what they learned as they looked at student samples of writing from across the Township and worked in groups to practice different techniques of feedback.
Seven members of the Township’s Language Arts Steering Committee, representing the seven districts, led those discussions in small groups, bringing together teachers from the middle schools and high school to discuss writing skills and effective feedback. The institute closed with time for district and grade level groups to discuss future plans for writing instruction and student movement from one level of schooling to the next.
The Township’s Language Arts Steering Committee will convene again in the fall to discuss the institute and to follow up on the work. The institute was the result of 18 months of planning by the committee, which also regularly discusses instruction in all six of the core standards for Language Arts and organizes site visit observations and collaborative work between the sender schools and New Trier High School.
