Institute provides spark for teaching writing

Some key assumptions guide the work at the Sabal Palms Writing Project, where 16 teachers are spending part of their summer learning to be better writers for the sake of their students.

That good reading and writing skills are essential to successful learning is understood. That good writers make the best writing teachers and that reading is crucial to good writing form the basis for the National Writing Project, an effort begun in 1974 in which teachers teach each other how to be better writers and more effective writing teachers.

"To be a good writer, you have to read," said Paula Parson, a professor of language, literature and intercultural studies at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. Parson is one of two professors for the Sabal Palms Writing Project, which officially is two graduate-level courses, one in writing and one in reading.

"The philosophy is that teachers of writing have to be writers themselves ... so reading a good quality of literature is very important," Parson said. "We look at the skilled craft of the author, so we're reading like writers."

The Sabal Palms Writing Project, a four-week summer institute at UTB-TSC has trained more than 200 teachers in its 10 years of existence, said Lyon Rathbun, an assistant professor of English and communication who is Parson's counterpart on the writing side of the equation.

"Sixteen is almost exactly the right size, but we've taught the institute in two sections in other years," Rathbun said. Sabal Palms is one of about 200 sites that comprise the National Writing Project.

The NWP started at the University of California at Berkley, where James Gray became convinced that teachers themselves were the people best qualified to do professional development in the schools.

"It started as a summer institute to train other teachers in teaching reading and exploring best practices," Rathbun said. "You had experienced, seasoned teachers sharing in the classroom and also developing their own writing abilities and it spread across the country."

Ruth Villarreal, an English teacher and chairwoman of the English department at James Pace High School, said she will take strategies she learned at the institute back to her classroom.

"Our kids need to write more," she said. "I like how the students are seen as authors. It helps us to value our students. ... It has caused me to grow professionally and personally. It has given me a voice so that I can address things socially in the culture that I live in. I absolutely love it. It's been a great experience for me."

Administrators at the Brownsville Independent School District also are impressed with the program, crediting it with improving BISD's scores on the writing portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

Teachers trained at the summer institute pass on the writing methods to other teachers at their campuses, spreading the knowledge throughout the district. The goal is for students to become lifelong writers, said Bea Garcia, administrator for elementary curriculum and instruction.

The program had been so successful that BISD decided to collaborate with Sabal Palms to offer a mini version of the summer institute this past spring. Teachers attended training on four successive Saturdays, with more than 200 teachers representing all BISD campuses receiving the training, Garcia said.

Rathbun said research shows that people can't write at a higher level than they can read, "but what we can do is provide an environment where students can learn to write." He said every summer a handful of students make tremendous progress.

"Writing is an art and a craft," he said. "You can learn the craft and teach the craft. The art is a little trickier. I'm not sure how much of the art you can teach, but you can share the art."

Beatriz Moreno, a kindergarten teacher at Aiken Elementary, said one of the most important things she is learning this summer is how to teach her students descriptive writing.

"I can ask them to describe the picture and they are engaged," she said, giving the example of a porcupine. "We introduce images, enticing images, and they are engaged. Then I say, ‘now can you write a story about porcupines.' "