The winds of autumn may be blowing Bay Area leaves around and there may even be rain in the forecast, but summer isn't so far back in our rear-view mirrors. Even as East Bay classes swing into their second month of the new school year and we resume fall writer coaching, I'm reminded of a remarkable scene that played out again in Berkeley classrooms a short time ago: writer coaching in summer school.
As they've been doing for a number of years, WCC associates Priscilla Myrick and Jeanine Brown organized a flock of our writer coaches to volunteer in summer-school classes this year. The coaches supported the two 7th grade English classes (more than 60 students) taught by King Middle School English and Read 180 teacher Steven Conley. More than 20 experienced coaches provided 200+ hours of one-on-one coaching for five consecutive Tuesday mornings over the course of the five-week summer session. The coaches provided almost 250 individual half-hour coaching sessions, working with every student every week. Whenever possible, the same coach was assigned with the same student, a key ingredient in the formula that helps build a relationship and allows students and coaches to build on previous sessions, maximizing the development of writing and critical thinking skills.
Mr. Conley wrote a heart-felt appreciation to the coaches, affirming, "The improvement was beyond anything I had expected. The students' weekly test scores raised from 2.3 to 3.1. On a four-point scale, this is massive growth. I also firmly believe that the dropout rate would have been much higher, without the writing coaches."
We like to think of WriterCoach Connection as a value-added service in many ways, and summer-school coaching in Berkeley is one of them!
Bob Menzimer
