WriterCoach Connection

Coaches fill the classroom

If you've never been a WriterCoach Connection volunteer, you may wonder exactly how our coaching works. One aspect of it is the session pre-briefing. Before the coaches file into a classroom to meet their students, they gather with the site coordinator to review the students' writing assignment for the day and to get last-minute instructions or requests from the teachers as passed through the site coordinators. At Portola Middle School in El Cerrito, there are so many volunteer coaches that just this pre-coach briefing session fills the room!

Here are the coaches at Portola Middle School on the morning of May 11, getting a briefing from site coordinator Kathleen Hallam (standing, center left). There are 30 coaches on this team, so many that when they enter the classroom to meet their students, the coaches form a line that extends out the door!

Bob Menzimer

Berkeley Association of Realtors builds a funding roof over WriterCoach Connection

On April 25, the Berkeley Association of Realtors granted us $2,000 to help support expansion of WCC at Berkeley High's Green Academy next year. This generous gift comes from the BAR's Youth Arts and Education Fund, supported by individual member realtors who contribute a portion of their commissions to support youth in the communities served by the Association's members. 

This funding will enable us to widen our horizon at Berkeley High's Green Academy, where we are serving the 12th grade this year and where, with a boost from the Berkeley Association of Realtors, we plan to expand to serve the school's 9th graders next year.

The BAR website includes a video of grant recipients, expressing their thanks. At the 4:20 mark of the 5:04 video, you'll spot your correspondent voicing gratitude on behalf of everyone associated with WCC, particularly in Berkeley, and most especially at Green Academy.

Bob Menzimer

April showers bring...a new WCC newsletter

WriterCoach Connection is full of good news these days—our expansion to Richmond, our upcoming events, and our ever-growing opportunities to coach. We want to share all that news with you!

The first enewsletter has just been sent to all our WCC fans. We plan to send it four to six times a year: just enough to keep you on top of the most interesting WCC news without cluttering your inbox. We hope you'll continue to stay subscribed even if you're no longer a coach—so that you can stay tapped into your community and the program that you've helped to grow!  

If you'd like to be on our mailing list but didn't get the newsletter, view the newsletter, and please sign up so that you receive the next one. 

Christine McGuinness 

The magic of individual attention

Longfellow WCC site co-coordinator Mark Pasley has brought to our attention this moving story from CBS News, what Mark calls "...a perfect example of how approaching a student without judgement and giving them positive input about their strengths can have a real impact."

It's no surprise why this story reminded Mark of our work with students in WCC. Check it out!

 

Bob Menzimer

Tell the world about WriterCoach Connection!

The website Great Nonprofits is a location to find, review, and talk about nonprofit organizations and programs. Our volunteers and supporters are typically bursting with stories about the value of WriterCoach Connection for the students and teachers we serve, and for themselves. Please share your stories and feelings about WCC on Great Nonprofits. It will help us spread the word and attract the volunteers we need for further program expansion.

Many thanks!

Bob Menzimer

Writer coaching 2010-11: off and running!

When WCC coaches convene at King Middle School in Berkeley this week, WriterCoach Connection will be off and running at seven of our nine school sites for 2010-11. (We begin at Media and Mandela high schools in Oakland in the next two weeks.) One more training sequence remains, Tuesdays at noon on Nov. 2 and 9, so there's still time to register--but do it soon!

Here's coach Kay Lunine, working with a student at King last fall. Join Kay and her fellow coaches for what one coach called "the most satisfying school volunteer activity I've ever had."

Bob Menzimer

WriterCoach Connection in the City of Light

Veteran WCC coach Kevin Westbrooke was in Europe this spring to visit his daughters and figured Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was not a bad place to practice the Bach mass he is singing with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. Not a bad place to promote WriterCoach Connection, either!

Bob Menzimer

 

Thousands of conversations about writing: WCC in 2009-10

A robust year of work by WriterCoach Connection volunteers concluded in May and June with enthusiastic flourishes at all six of our school sites, as students, teachers, and coaches celebrated the collaborations that made the program a rousing success for 2009-10. When the final coaching sessions concluded, 384 dedicated WCC volunteers had worked with 19 teachers in 46 classes, sitting down with 1,285 students for one-on-one writing conferences 9,763 times. Whew!

This scene at Media Academy in Oakland was repeated thousands of times in East Bay schools in 2009-10, as coaches huddled with students to help advance teachers' learning goals and guide the development of writing and critical thinking skills. 

WCC's invaluable site coordinators made all this happen, deftly orchestrating the activities of innumerable coach teams in support of teachers and students. These wizards of organization include Sahi-Amar Khalsa (Community Partnerships Academy at Berkeley High), Kathleen Hallam (King Middle School, Berkeley), Annie Stine and Mark Pasley (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Jeanine Brown (Willard Middle School, Berkeley), Karen Larson (Media Academy, Oakland), and Teresa Barnett and Peg Healy (Albany Middle School). 

Our site coordinators and volunteer coaches deserve their summer break! Meantime, Community Alliance for Learning staff and board members are busy planning for WriterCoach Connection 2010-11.

Bob Menzimer

The straws that stir the drink

What most people are interested in about WriterCoach Connection is how the program works, whom it serves, what results it generates. People like to hear stories from our coaches and comments from the students and teachers with whom we work. But every once in awhile, I like to pause and recognize the people who are responsible for the powerful impact WCC makes in our public schools. Community Alliance for Learning, the nonprofit that runs WriterCoach Connection, is populated by a remarkable group of site coordinators and by a tiny but highly effective staff. And here they are, or most of them, at our spring site coordinator meeting.

The site coordinators are the linchpins of this program, the indispensable links in the chain of our success. They run the program at each school, managing teams of volunteers (and helping recruit them, too), and providing the crucial interface between the coaches and the teachers. Here they surround CAFL's associate director Lynn Mueller and our new director of instruction Jayne Walker. A remarkable core of talent and dedication.

Back, left to right: Annie Stine (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Jeanine Brown (Willard Middle School, Berkeley), Lynn Mueller (Associate Director), Jayne Walker (Director of Instruction), Mark Pasley (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Peg Healy (Albany Middle School). Front, left to right: Sahib-Amar Khalsa (Berkeley High), Kathleen Hallam (King Middle School, Berkeley), Karen Larson (Media Academy, Oakland). Not present: Teresa Barnett (Albany Middle School).

Bob Menzimer

Stay smart--go back to school as a writing coach!

According to an article published online January 15, 2010 at www.healthzone.ca by The You Docs (Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz), "Numerous studies have found that staying physically active, socially connected or mentally stimulated help keep aging brains sharp." And the proof was in the pudding, or in the research data, for two dozen women age 60 or older who volunteered in classrooms for fifteen hours a week in Baltimore. After six months, brain scans revealed that the volunteers had increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain that often declines with age and makes it more difficult to focus. The changes were not noted in a group of similar women who didn't volunteer.

So join the best antidote to aging I know--volunteer to be a WCC coach. Our spring training sessions are underway, but they end soon. Register for training by clicking here!

Bob Menzimer