Showcasing Writing Across the Curriculum

The first open Saturday event for the San Antonio Writing Project happened last Saturday, and it went amazingly well. We had something like 130 teachers from the community come and see presentations from seven of our Teacher Consultants (me being one of them). Gretchen Bernabi was our keynote. I felt like between Gretchen, Roxanne, and then Judi Berridge at the end, we might have "over wonderfulled" them, but the bottom line is I hope that they got something from attending. The NWP model is so simple and powerful, and it is fallible. It is based on teachers sharing their practice, and these teachers are good teachers, but they also aren't necessarily professional trainers.

I talked about using Process Journals to promote learning. (http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/lirvin/processjournals.htm )
It seemed to be well received, but I think that some of those attending didn't think that their students were capable of using this kind of reflection. My son's former 5th grade teacher came, and she was complimentary and made the comment that it might be above her fifth graders. That comment made me pause. Is reflection so dependent upon developmental factors that it is productively used only at certain levels? I don't know. I think any age has the capability to reflect. What may limit reflection is that the thinking of younger students may not have the experience and the frame of reference and knowledge to see what they have done in context and see alternatives.
All in all, it was a wonderful event and I'm so proud of our group for putting it together and pulling it off. I hope that we generate lots of applications for the Summer Institute from it.