WriterCoach Connection

Every minute with a student counts!

Since the big education budget axe fell in Albany several years ago, Albany Middle School has not had funding for a full year of WriterCoach Connection. But the school administration and teachers have refused to lose their writer coaches completely, and have found a way to pay for a limited WCC program, serving every 8th grader in the school with writing support on their I-Search research projects for eight weeks in the spring. But never think that eight weeks of coaching, as opposed to 20, doesn't make a difference. Here is what some AMS 8th graders wrote to their coaches recently as they approached the end of their I-Search assignments:

"Thank you so much for helping me with a part of my I-Search. You really helped me improve my writing. Without your help, I wouldn't have done my best. I really appreciate you taking time from your day to help me out. Thanks for the help!" 

"Thank you so much for taking the time to help me with my I-Search! I appreciate your suggestions, reading through my writing patiently, and helping me spot grammar and spelling errors. I liked how you didn't have me read my work aloud and were very enthusiastic throughout our meetings. Thanks again!"

"Thank you so much for all the help. Thanks for helping me with every assignment. Without you my work wouldn't be as good. It was very fun to correct my work with you! Thanks again!"

"Thank you for helping me edit my media search paper and also my OSO [onsite observation]  paper. It really helped me get a better grade for my I-Search. THANK YOU!"

"Thank you for helping me edit my Media Search and OSO paper. I agree that it is nice to do a research project on a topic of my choice. It was nice to have someone to talk to about Alcatraz. Thank you again."

"Thank you so very much for all the great feedback you have given me. It really helped me get an awesome grade on my media search paper. I am so glad to have been able to work with such an experienced writer."

"Thanks a lot! I came later for the 8th grade, so I was really confused with all the I-Search stuff. You helped me a lot with these things. You helped me especially with the O.S.O. final draft. Thanks for the patient [sic] with me. I learned a lot with you .. One more time, THANK YOU!"

"Thanks for helping me make a better letter by helping brainstorm questions for each location I sent to. Sadly, I did not get a reply from any of the people I sent to, but it was still good experience for writing business letters. Thanks!"

"Thank you so much for helping me with everything! I am especially thankful for your help with the 'Letters to the Experts.' I really got some good ideas from you. I really enjoyed talking to you. THANK YOU."

"Thank you so much for all of your help with my I-Search. I thought that writer coaches would be boring, but you made it interesting. You reviewed my papers, and then we talked about fun things, like Portal, Las Vesas, and GTH. Thank you."

And from all of us, a big thank you to AMS site coordinator Peg Healy and her coaches for providing the expert support that generates these heartfelt expressions of appreciation!

Bob Menzimer

Teachers tell why they love WriterCoach Connection

Teachers today face daunting curricular loads and badly overcrowded classrooms. Imagine trying to cram in the required instructional material while attempting to give individual attention to up to 30 students in a class. Virtually impossible. So imagine the impact on a teacher who has a team of trained coaches on hand to offer one on one writing support to every student in class.

No need to imagine it. Here's what the teachers say.

Remarks Caitlin Alastra, a Longfellow Middle School teacher in Berkeley who serves students in Read 180 classes, for students performing below and far below grade level:

"I taught my students last year in 6th grade so I can say from experience that my Read 180 students   are producing much more high-quality writing as 7th graders, thanks to the support of the writer coaches. On several occasions my students have returned from meeting with their coaches elated by words of encouragement from their coach.  For these students, being able to express their ideas in writing is a huge victory.  I'm deeply appreciative for the positive experiences with writing the writer coaches have facilitated with these emerging writers."

Caitlin's Read 180 teaching colleague Nina Ziskin notes:

"Many of the Read 180 students were initially resistant to the idea of working with the writer coaches. I believe they are afraid of exposing their low skills to strangers. However, as the year has progressed, the students are more willing to receive assistance from the coaches, and have even begun to state that they find it helpful. 

"The students' increased willingness to take advantage of an opportunity for assistance, despite the risks to their self-esteem, is one of the benefits I have observed this year. I think this improvement is at least partly related to the coaches' willingness to modify their approach to meet the individual needs of each student. I am hopeful that the students are learning the value of taking a risk and accepting help when it is offered. 

 "One academic difference I notice from last year (when Read 180 didn't have coaches) is that the students are writing longer paragraphs, with more detail.

"Finally, it must be obvious, but there is no way the students could get this much individual attention   from just one teacher." 

 And from Albany Middle School teacher Jamie Heans:

"Considering the number of students in a classroom (thirty or so students, one teacher), it’s a real challenge to teach writing.  One of the best interventions to overcome that ratio is WriterCoach Connection. I couldn’t give students this kind of one-on-one attention at this point.

 "I’ve noticed that with writer coaching, the students’ papers are dramatically better. Students respond to the coaching and will tell you that they enjoy it. I’ve heard them  make comments like, 'My writer coach really liked my piece! She wrote lots of comments about it.' Students feel honored and valued as writers when volunteers come in and give them this one-on-one attention.  

"This is valuable contact time. The student-coach pairing is a great relationship."

We're deeply grateful to these dedicated teachers who go out of their way to craft writing assignments for writer-coach support and represent a key factor in the success of WriterCoach Connection.

 

Bob Menzimer                                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

WriterCoach Connection gears up to serve Albany students for spring

On January 25, Albany WCC Site Coordinator Peg Healy will lead more than 50 volunteers in the spring coaching sessions to support Albany Middle School students on their I-Search projects. The spring coaching is the result of determined fundraising by the AMS community, the Albany Education Foundation, Albany Rotary, and the community at large, keeping WCC at AMS when the parcel-tax funding that had funded the program in previous years was diverted by the district to cover core school expenses.

To keep our Albany volunteers engaged, community visibility is crucial. That's why Peg Healy and CAFL Associate Director Lynn Mueller were on hand at the Albany Community Center on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday Jan. 17 for the annual Albany Commit to Serve Expo. Here they are, ready to spread the word at the WCC table.

Below,  prospective WCC volunteer Tennessee Gock signs up for a coach training session.

Bob Menzimer

Hear Me Out! raises the roof for WriterCoach Connection in Albany

On Sunday, March 28, a band of wondrously dedicated volunteers from the East Bay Nation of Men (EBNOM), in collaboration with local poets, brought their innovative Hear Me Out! fundraising project on behalf of WriterCoach Connection to a jubilant conclusion with a program of poetry reading, improv comedy, silent auctioneering, chalk art, heartfelt testimonials, lively music, and delectable food at the Thousand Oaks Baptist Church in Berkeley.

Albany Middle School students who had been mentored for the previous seven weeks by EBNOM and other poet volunteers provided the highlight of the program, reading their poetry to rapt attention from an audience that filled the radiant Julia-Morgan designed space at the church. The young poets included Bri Alleyne, Luna Bowling, Jordan Gray, Alexandra Ledvina, Jenny Li, Christina Reyes, and Isabella Rocroi. Adult poet mentors who read their work included Peter Gradjansky, Nicole Griffin, Robert Martin, Laura Riggs, and Maya Stein. 

Stone Soup Improv (Jennifer Simmons and Alan Becker) kept everyone laughing, and Albany City Councilperson and former mayor Marge Atkinson, Albany parent and WCC coach Kelley Montana, AMS English Dept. Chair Robert Pressnall, and WCC site coordinator Karen Larson spoke about the impact of WCC on students, teachers, schools, and coaches. EBNOM's Robert Martin, Hear Me Out! director, painted a vivid picture of the importance of writer coaching to Albany students, and project manager Phillip Garrison made sure everything went just right.

The event raised funds to help assure the return of WCC to Albany Middle School next year on at least a limited basis, and generated about half the total amount needed to reach that goal.

For a compelling set of event of shots from talented photogapher John Doty, go here.

Dozens of highly focused, dedicated volunteers spent countless hours to bring the Hear Me Out! project to life, and WCC looks forward to offering the fruits of the labors to AMS students and teachers next year!

 

Photos by John Doty 

Bob Menzimer

 

Albany Middle School and Albany Education Foundation won't let WCC disappear

Last year, severe budget cuts forced the Albany Unified School District to divert parcel-tax revenue to cover core operating expenses. That move pulled the rug out from under numerous programs that had been funded by the parcel taxes, including WriterCoach Connection. But the Albany community refused to accept the disappearance of writer coaches from AMS classrooms. The AMS Site Council, the AMS PTA, and the Albany Education Foundation generously teamed up to allocate scarce funds for a limited coaching program at AMS for spring, providing writer coaches to help all eighth-grade students with their I-Search projects for eight weeks. Those two months of coaching began on Groundhog Day (Feb. 2), when our dauntless WCC volunteers popped up in the AMS library to greet students and teachers. What an invigorating feeling, to have writer coaching re-surface in Albany at last. Eight more weeks of coaching sunshine!

Community Alliance for Learning called in a lot of chits to offer this coaching for the cost of only a program site coordinator (Albany education and community activist, and long-time WCC coach and staff member, Teresa Barnett). It's a one-time shot for this year only, and the continuation of writer coaching for AMS, and for Albany High, next year will depend on the availability of funding from the new parcel tax passed last November. Allocation of those resources to pay for WriterCoach Connection will be up to the community at each school, but without that funding, the program cannot continue in Albany.

Meantime, however, the coaches are back and the Albany Middle School library is filled with smiles and abuzz with communication on coaching days. Here are English teacher Abby Skrivan (standing), with WCC coach Jennifer Morris and student Geoffrey Lopez, all clearly engaged with the process and happy that WCC has returned to AMS.

Bob Menzimer

WCC joins Albany community in reaching out

Last year, the Albany community began a tradition of celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a Commit to Serve Expo in the city's community center, where volunteer-based organizations and the citizenry mingle to create partnerships to further the social agenda represented by Dr. King. This year, WCC's site coordinator in Oakland, Karen Larson, a longtime Albany education activist, teamed with CAFL Associate Director and Volunteer Coordinator Lynn Mueller to staff the WriterCoach Connection recruiting table at the event. Here they are (Karen on the right), staying dry on a wind-blown and rainy Monday.

 

Karen, Lynn, and I made a number of valuable contacts for WCC at the event, helping to rev up the action for the beginning of writer coaching in Albany this year. In the absence this year of the parcel-tax funding that has been available to support WCC in Albany in previous years, the Albany Middle School Site Council and PTA contributed enough funding to support a limited coaching program this spring at AMS, helping eighth graders with their I-Search projects.

There is still time to sign up for the current round of coach training, which runs into early February. Visit the Volunteer registration page of the WCC website here.

Bob Menzimer

Update on Albany coaching for 2009-10

As you may know by now, at this point, because of the uncertain budget situation, the Albany Unified School District has not been able to allocate to WCC the parcel-tax funding that has traditionally supported the program at Albany High and Albany Middle School. We all share the dismay about the budget situation in Albany and, although I do want to communicate the reality of school funding in AUSD as it affects WCC, I also want to share how much the program is valued, from the very top with Superintendent Marla Stephenson all the way down through the district staff, school administrators, teachers, students, and, of course, the coaches.

That depth of feeling makes us all determined to maintain some kind of presence in the district, starting with summer-school coaching this year (contact Nick Berger if you'd like to coach students at AHS this summer), and continuing with on-going exploration of some kind of limited coaching for 2009-10 at one site, or at both AMS and AHS, or, if the budget planets align just right, perhaps something resembling a full program at one of the schools. We just don't know yet, but the shape of the state and school budgets make the chances for each of those potential programs increasingly more challenging, in the order I mentioned them.

I do hope that in Albany next year, writer coaches will be sitting down with some students, somehow, somewhere. And if you've already been coaching in Albany, I hope one of them will be you!

Bob Menzimer

Survey says: WriterCoach Connection works!

We're in the midst of our annual assessment of WriterCoach Connection, and Albany Middle School site co-coordinators Karen Larson and Nancy Whitney give us an advance peek at some of the evaluation results.

Says Karen, "Overall, 80% of the students find WriterCoach Connection to be 'helpful' or 'very helpful.' That's a pretty good result in my book! In case you're wondering if your coaching is making a difference, you can rest assured that it is! In the words of the students, 'Coaches rock!' 'They are cooooool--in fact, too cool for school!'"

Adds Nancy, "(Teacher) Mr. Heans made a special point of coming up to me today to tell me almost all of his students had received scores of 85% and higher on their book review papers. He attributes this to our coaches and said, 'This is documented proof the coaches are making a difference in the writing scores of our students.'"

These rave reviews reflect superlative work by Karen, Nancy, and all the AMS coaches, who deserve our unending gratitude and deep appreciation. Effective results for our students and teachers--it's why we're doing this!

Coaches reinforce the value of WCC at Albany Middle School

Yesterday, coaches Leala Thomas, Tony Hawthorne and Jayne Walker (who is also a WCC coach trainer) were the very embodiment of how WCC volunteers make a difference to our teachers. They gathered with  AMS site coordinators Karen Larson and Nancy Whitney and CAFL program manager Teresa Barnett in the AMS library to help the AMS staff score student assessment essays.

Teachers in every one of our three school districts have expressed repeated deep appreciation for the help of CAFL volunteers in the daunting task of scoring hundreds of student essays in a single session. These teachers have never had this kind of help before, and I think it will be a factor when school administrators and school board members have to make difficult decisions about funding priorities for next year.

To the gratitude expressed by the AMS staff, I'll add my thanks to Leala, Tony, Jayne, Karen, Nancy, and Teresa.

Bob Menzimer

Every Albany eighth and ninth grader gets writer coaching!

Six years ago, Albany High School became the locus of WriterCoach Connection's first expansion from its original base in Berkeley. And three years after that, the program expanded again, two blocks to the northwest, to Albany Middle School. The program is now firmly embedded into the English curricula at both schools. Here's how it looked as the 2008-09 school year began.

The WCC site co-coordinators at Albany High, Teresa Barnett and Peg Healy, tell this story about the beginning of the program's sixth year at AHS:

"Wow, I misssed this -- it's so good to be back working with students again," beamed one
returning coach after working with three different students on a challenging Maltese Falcon
essay.  The other coaches on the team echoed the sentiment, and spent a few minutes debriefing and sharing ideas with the two newest coaches to join the team. As we start the sixth year of writer coaching at Albany High School, the usual irregular and fluid conditions prevail. We coach on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, primarily meeting with the sixteen 9th-grade English classes, with three of the five teachers new to the 9th grade program. We're also occasionally available for seven other mixed-grade classes of English language learners, whose students and teachers are especially appreciative.  Of our roster of 45 wonderful and flexible coaches, 11 are new to coaching this year. Between mid-October and November 6th we completed over 330 individual coaching sessions! We hope to see most 9th grade English students about six times each by the end of April.

Over at Albany Middle School, site co-coordinator Karen Larson can hardly believe the program is already heading into its third straight year; she was the original site coordinator at AMS, and she's still there. Karen and her coordinating partner this year, Nancy Whitney, sailed into the program with the same degree of gusto that has characterized the program every year, buoyed by the staunch support of Albany Middle School principal Robin Davis, herself a writing teacher, and her dedicated staff of four eighth-grade English teachers. Here's what Karen and Nancy have to say:

Sometimes the fall brings heat and sometimes it brings rain, but one thing is sure: at Albany Middle School fall brings writer coaches to the 8th grade English classes!

 

Newly trained coaches join an ever-growing cadre of experienced coaches in our third year at AMS.  So far this year we have been able to work on several assignments that have helped us to get to know the students. We have coached them on an essay exploring “Three Sides of Me,” where the students write about one of their characteristics from the perspective of someone who knows them well. We started working with them on their Mandala project where students explore their sun and shadow sides through animals, weather, plants, and so on. We also got to know what is important to our students in the letters they wrote to the next president to be published on Google Docs.

Students have also been able to bring their own voice to history studies by writing a children’s book describing Columbus’ first meeting with the Americans. Their creativity is stretched on their work on a newspaper inspired by their reading of “The Light in the Forest,” written partially from the perspective of the Native Americans and in part from the perspective of the white settlers.

We have been in every 8^th grade class so far. In the 375 coaching sessions conducted so far, we have been able to coach almost every 8^th grade student at AMS. Not a bad way to kick off the fall!