WriterCoach Connection

WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley celebrates Cal student coaches

One of the most welcome additions to WCC in the last few years has been the formation of an official UC Berkeley student organization to recruit Cal students as writer coaches for WCC. At its December 3 meeting, WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley expressed appreciation for the dedicated service to our middle and high school students and their teachers. And everyone at Community Alliance for Learning joins in that expression of gratitude! Our public-school kids LOVE their Cal coaches, who have energized our entire program with their skill, energy, and enthusiasm.

Photo by Lynn Mueller

At the WCCB meeting on Dec. 3 were (top, left to right): Claire Hwang, Rachel Morgan, Leah Moskovic, Karlie Drutz, Jennifer Carr, Joanna Salem, and WCCB President Wei Liu. Bottom, left to right: Debbie Lieu, Jane Chong, Cal Volunteer Manager Briana Jauregui, WCCB Secretary Kelli-Jean Chun, and WCCB Treasurer Melissa Solano.

These Cal students have really transformed the ranks of our WCC coaches. Go Bears!

Bob Menzimer

This is why we are writer coaches

For everyone who puts so much of his or her heart and soul into WriterCoach Connection, I wanted to relate something I heard this morning. It goes to the heart of why you support this program.

 I was visiting CP Academy teacher Susannah Bell’s class at Berkeley High and amidst the buzz of coaching, Susannah pulled me aside and said, “I just want you to know that what happens here goes beyond just writer coaching. “  She then described a few examples of what her students are dealing with in their lives. Two homeless students. The student whose mother tried to kill her and is now serving a life sentence, and whose father, feeling the student was “too vain,” shaved her head.  And there was much more. “The attention the coaches give these kids is saving their lives,” said Susannah. I had been staring off down the hall, trying to absorb what Susannah had been telling me, and when I looked back at her, she had tears in her eyes.

 Right next to us were four examples of what Susannah was talking about: coaches Christina Redse, Mack Levine, Teddy Bell, and Melissa Solano, working with their students IN THE HALLWAY because there was no room for them in Susannah’s crowded classroom. Nor were there even enough chairs. Christina spent the entire coaching session crouching next to her student, and Mack coached his student while both were sitting on the bare hallway floor. Photographic evidence attached.

 

Annie Johnston, CP Academy Coordinator, is a tireless fundraiser on behalf of the school’s Writing for College program and WCC. I’ve been invited by Annie and Susannah to speak on behalf of WCC at a CP Academy presentation to the board of directors of In Dulci Jubilo on Dec. 17, and to thank them for supporting our program. I’ll be honored to do that, and to tell them, in the meantime, what a privilege it is to work with Annie, Susannah, and their colleague Ariel Morris. That privileged feeling is also generated by working with our BHS site coordinator Sahib-Amar Khalsa and all of her colleagues at our other sites, not to mention our hundreds of volunteer coaches. What was happening today at CP Academy, and what Susannah described to me, is happening at every one of our schools.

 I believe that your dedication is well placed.

Robert Menzimer

Executive Director

 

Writer coaches flood back into East Bay classrooms

The 2009-10 school year began with a familiar site in the hallways of five East Bay schools--WriterCoach Connection volunteers paired with their students, walking to and from their coaching locations, usually deep in conversation even before they actually sit down to begin focusing on the students' writing assignments.

WriterCoach Connection returns this year to King, Longfellow, and Willard middle schools in Berkeley, to Berkeley High's Community Partnerships Academy, and to Media Academy in Oakland. New this year at Media: writer coaching for the twelfth grade, as coaches work with students on their Senior Projects. This significant expansion of WCC at Media beyond the tenth grade means a great deal to the students and staff at our first Oakland school site. We've become firmly attached to the students, teachers, and administrators at this school!

In Albany, inadequate state education funding has put severe pressure on the district budget. As a result, the parcel-tax funding that has supported many worthwhile programs, including WriterCoach Connection, has been diverted to cover core school courses and staff. That means no writer coaching this year for students at Albany High. But the Albany Middle School PTA and Site Council combined to allocate enough funding for limited coaching there this spring, when WCC volunteers will return to AMS to work with all eighth-grade students on their I-Search projects. We are so grateful to the AMS PTA and Site Council for enabling us to maintain our writer-coach presence in Albany!

Bob Menzimer

A shout-out to the linchpins of WriterCoach Connection

In just about every respect we can identify, WriterCoach Connection site coordinators are central to the success of the program. As the nexus between the organization and the schools, between the coaches and the teachers, and between the coaches and the students, they are the nerve center for everything. It takes an extraordinary person to handle this job, a rich mixture of organizational and personal capabilities. The job is an enormous amount of work, and the pay is little more than a stipend. So the compensation and the scheduling narrow the list of site coordinator candidates each year and only the most dedicated WCC coaches apply for these positions.

As we approach the end of the 2008-09 school year, I know I'm joined by all our program stakeholders--students, teachers, coaches, staff, and board members, in expressing deep appreciation for these sterling site coordinators:

Lisa Awrey - Media Academy
Teresa Barnett - Albany High
Jeanine Brown - Willard Middle School
Kathleen Hallam - King Middle School
Peg Healy - Albany High
Sahib-Amar Khalsa - Berkeley High
Karen Larson - Albany Middle School
Mark Pasley - Longfellow Middle School
Clara Sneed - Media Academy
Annie Stine - Longfellow Middle School
Nancy Whitney - Albany Middle School

The success of WriterCoach Connection starts with these eleven extraordinary people, for whom we have boundless admiration.

Bob Menzimer

Today's reality

If you're wondering about the relevance of the social-network communication vehicle you're reading right now, I refer you to this comment from a Herbert Hoover middle schooler in San Francisco, quoted in Leah Garchik's SF Chronicle column yesterday:

"My mom reads the paper in the morning. It's sort of like a blog."

Bob Menzimer

Wishing our WriterCoach Connection colleagues the best for the New Year

I'm so grateful to be surrounded by such a dedicated band of CAFL board and staff members. volunteer and site coordinators, and WCC coaches. I just wanted to express deep thanks to all of you, on behalf of all the students and teachers we serve in our seven East Bay schools. You deserve the best for 2009!

Bob

Robert Menzimer
Executive Director
Community Alliance for Learning

Plenty of reasons to be thankful

As I write this, Thanksgiving morning has dawned, quiet and peaceful. And that's reason enough to be thankful, since world and national events have made the day far from restful for far too many people. But the day does offer one of the year's best opportunities to think, with overwhelming gratitude, about all the ceaselessly dedicated volunteer coaches (more than 325 this year!) who have made it possible for us to work so effectively with students in Oakland and throughout Albany and Berkeley. If you're one of those coaches, you've earned the respect and admiration of CAFL board and staff members, volunteer and site coordinators, school district staff, school administrators, and teachers all over the East Bay. You've got a big fan club, and you deserve it!

Robert Menzimer

Executive Director

Community Alliance for Learning

Welcome to the WriterCoach Connection blog

Connecting is what we do when a WriterCoach Connection volunteer sits down in class with a student to work on a writing assignment, and connecting is what we hope all WCC stakeholders--Community Alliance for Learning board members and staff, WCC volunteer and site coordinators, CAFL and WCC affiliates, and most especially our volunteer writer coaches--will use this blog for. Welcome to our community of people passionately committed to the mission of helping students develop writing and critical thinking skills!