WriterCoach Connection

At Mills College: more WriterCoach Connection volunteer recruiting

Oakland Volunteer Coordinator Karen Larson and her redoubtable band of volunteer recruiters were at it for the second time in three days on Monday, March 12, setting up shop at the Mills College Internship Fair. She and WCC volunteers Nick Keefe, Anne Steinberg, and Kent Wright attracted 15 signups from undergraduate and graduate students interested in WCC for this fall. Valuable outreach!

Here are Anne and Nick, ready for business:

 

Bob Menzimer

Lots of WriterCoach Connection action at the Oakland Volunteer Fair

On Saturday, March 10, WCC Oakland Volunteer Coordinator Karen Larson and a cadre of WCC compatriots set up shop behind the WriterCoach Connection table at the annual Oakland Volunteer Fair, at City Hall. The air filled with conversation about writing support as volunteers checked out how to sign up for coach training and how to help the program in a variety of other ways.

Many thanks to Karen and to her loyal associates Mary Ann Benson, Ellen Shaffer, and Ken Yee for helping to spread the word!

Here's Karen in action, a blur of enthusiasm, as usual:

Photo by Mary Ann Benson

Bob Menzimer

Media Academy students stand out in national contest

Amidst all the reports of school budget cuts, teacher layoffs and low test scores, leave it to some students at Media Academy to rewrite the story. Last month, the high school's student newspaper, the Green & Gold, took fourth place in a national journalism contest, beating out several private schools and schools with top-ranking California state test scores.  

The winners were announced on April 16 at the National Scholastic Press Association/Journalism Education Association's National Convention in Anaheim.

"It's very nice to get validation from an outside source," said Lisa Shafer, the paper's adviser. "I really don't think the students know how good they are. We do have real news, and we go after it." 

But it gets better. Two students, who participated in the WriterCoach Connection program at Media last year, took home top prizes in a write-off contest with more than 1,000 other students. Kim Mejia-Cuellar, a junior, earned an "Excellent" ranking in the news writing category while her twin sister Gloria "Jack" won an "Honorable Mention" for editorial writing at the conference. 

"I felt really proud," says Jack, reflecting on the experience from the newsroom at Media. "Comparing ourselves to other kids that have more money and better resources and seeing that their papers weren't that good, I learned it doesn't matter where you're from. You can still be a great journalist."  

Both girls wrote their pieces about the "Parent Trigger", a proposed school reform concept that would allow parents to force public schools into closing or becoming charter schools, if they failed to perform. Their submissions were judged on a broad range of criteria, from attention-grabbing leads, use of active verbs and interesting language to original angles and lack of errors.  

That's where the impact of WriterCoach Connection can be seen. "I think it gave me more confidence in my writing," said Jack, remarking on how coaching has influenced her writing on the paper. "Knowing that someone else is going to read your work -- it drives you to write better." 

According to Shafer, students care more about the craft of writing than they did in her first years at Media Academy, before WriterCoach Connection had a presence on campus. "It's hard to separate what part of that is WriterCoach Connection and what is the influence of a strong 10th grade writing teacher, Sonja Totten-Harris," says Shafer, who has been the paper's faculty adviser for five years. "I am convinced it is both, as the WCC program is especially successful at Media because we have an English Language Arts teacher who cares so much about students, about writing and about WriterCoach Connection." 

"I think the students are more open to receiving feedback on their writing and making revisions to it than they were in my first two years at Media, " Shafer added. "It used to be students would turn in a first draft and expect it to be published without having to do any more work on it. Now, they are more comfortable with the rewrites and rewrites and rewrites that good writing and good reporting often take."  

Kim Mejia-Cuellar concurred. "My writer coach definitely influenced me to get my writing published," says Kim. "She encouraged me to unleash the power of my words and supported me along the way. She also was genuinely interested in helping me become a better writer. Thank you, Kathy Kahn!"  

Both Mejia-Cuellar sisters are also active in Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia writing program and their school's debate team. "My writer coach encouraged me to go to 826 Valencia's writing camp over the summer and ever since I've been involved with the organization, " Jack said. "It's changed my life."   

Check out the award-winning Green & Gold and the photos below of Media students and advisor Lisa Shafer at the convention in Anaheim.

Lisa Awrey

 

Gloria "Jack" Mejia-Cuellar, a junior at Media Academy, works on her entry in the write-off contest at the National High School Journalism Convention in Anaheim in April 2011. 

 
L. to r., Media Academy Juniors Kim Mejia-Cuellar and Gloria "Jack" Mejia-Cuellar are flanked by Sophomores Katelyn Bauzon and Laura Lem as they head out for the conference loaded with copies of their newspaper to share. 

 

 

Coming to a momentary stop at Claremont McKenna College, are (l. to r.) Kim Mejia-Cuellar, Gloria "Jack" Mejia-Cuellar, newspaper advisor Lisa Shafer, Katelyn Bauzon, and Laura Lem.

 

 

Read all about it: Oakland Local spotlights WriterCoach Connection

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has a big idea, and WriterCoach Connection is a part of it. As reporter Barbara Grady writes in today's (March 30) edition of the online Oakland Local, on her inauguration day in January, Mayor Quan "...opened up City Hall to volunteers who would sign up to mentor and tutor Oakland’s youth, particularly at-risk youth. 

"'The first thing I want to do is put the children at the heart of the politics and the business of Oakland,” Quan said on inauguration day. 'Every volunteer group that helps the Oakland city schools will be there, every volunteer group that loves our parks, loves our libraries or loves our city.'"

Barbara Grady's Oakland Local article spotlights WriterCoach Connection as part of Mayor Quan's volunteer initiative. Check it out!
WCC volunteer Dale Rogers Marshall works with Media Academy sophomore Alejandra Lopez on a writing assignment for The Color Purple. Their collaboration is described in Barbara Grady's article in Oakland Local.

 

Bob Menzimer

Media Academy Students Share Epic Poems

Oakland Coach, Lisa Awrey, shares her experience of watching the 10th grade students perform their Epic Poems in December.

I wish you could have been with us last Friday (12/17) at Media to see Ms. Totten-Harris’ 10th grade classes perform their epic poems. [The Epic Poem Assignment is based on the students’ reading of Rodolfo Corky Gonzalez’s poem Yo Soy Joaquin, and their subsequent creation and performance of their own autobiographical and historically-based epic poem.]  The performances have grown, become more organized, and have welcomed more and more students from outside of Ms. Totten Harris's sophomore class in the audience. Principal Ben Schmookler and other Media teachers and administrators were there, too.

Students, some of whom appeared to be gang members or personally affected by gangs, wept as they recited their poems in the packed performance space. They proclaimed their identities as students, sons, mourners, descendants of Pancho Villa, and as Oaklanders. It was the most moving performance and proof of the impact of the work we do at Media and elsewhere as WriterCoach Connection volunteers.

Case in point: a withdrawn reticent young girl named Juanita (name has been changed) who I had coached the week prior and who – at that time— had nothing written down for the assignment. During the coaching session we talked about her desire to go into her fears, to write about something she was afraid of (advice she had received from a fellow student who had written and just shared with the group a powerful poem). She confided in me that her mother had died of cirrhosis of the liver when she was eight, but that she didn't want to write about that or anything personal because it would make her cry.

The morning of the performance, Juanita insisted on being the first to read her poem. To my surprise, she eagerly rushed to the podium and as soon as the audience quieted down, she belted out the words: "I am Juanita _____.  I am the girl who, after her mother died when she was eight years old, wanted to give up. “  She continued with personal examples of how this death caused her to make choices that were not in her best interst.

On and on she went, calling out very personal accounts of a troubled and tragic background whilst proudly claiming her place in the world and demanding a hopeful future.

Several more students followed Juanita; each stood at the podium before their fellow classmates and teachers and proclaimed who they were. Many of the students described tragedies and circumstances that most of us will never experience, certainly not at such a young age. Many, both boys and girls, had to stop as they read, interrupted by their emotion, and attempt to fight back tears. As each struggled at different spots in their performance, the audience remained quiet. Sometimes someone at the back cried out, "You've got this!"; another audience member would echo the vote of confidence and then the student would continue, wiping tears from their face as they read. Not one was laughed at.

I am not coaching Ms. Totten-Harris' tenth graders this semester. Mandela has a greater need for coaches, so I'm filling in there on Fridays. I only happened to be at Media the day two weeks ago when [Site Coordinator] Karen said they needed extra coaches to help student working on their epic poem assignment in the library. An assignment I remember well from previous years, I was glad to sit in. After our coaching session, Juanita asked if I was coming to the performance the following week. Without thinking, I said "Yes.

I'm so glad I did.

Thank you for all you do to help make WCC a reality and to continue to grow and reach more students like Juanita.

Happy New Year!  Oakland Coach Lisa Awrey

WriterCoach Connection featured in Oaktown Teen Times

The December 2010 edition of the Oaktown Teen Times features a story by Media Academy student Jazmin Garcia about WriterCoach Connection at Media Academy and Mandela High School. You can access the paper on the WCC website. Hit the News & Events tab at the top of the homepage, then select News Media from the dropdown menu. The WCC story is on Page 3.

WCC has entered its third consecutive year at Media, serving all of teacher Sonja Totten-Harris' tenth-grade students. Writer coaching came to Mandela this fall, serving all tenth graders in the classes of teacher John Nepomuceno. Meantime, we're delighted to announce that WCC will expand to all of Mandela's ninth graders this spring, in the classes of teacher Deborah Juarez.

Courtesy of photographer and Media Academy student Jennifer Truong and the Oaktown Teen Times, here are the coaches at work with students at Mandela.

Bob Menzimer

WriterCoach Connection expands again in Oakland!

The tirelessly dedicated staff at Mandela Law and Public Service Academy in Oakland, led by Principal Robin Glover, has welcomed WCC volunteers into the classrooms of teacher John Nepomuceno this year, marking the first expansion of WCC in Oakland beyond our first school site, Media Academy, which shares its Fruitvale campus with Mandela. At Mandela, coaches are working with Mr. Nepomuceno's tenth-grade classes, supported by a generous grant from the Dean Witter Foundation. The program is going so well with the tenth graders that when the school received a grant from the Michael Jordan Foundation recently, Ms. Glover immediately asked if we could further expand our coaching to include the ninth grade in addition to the tenth. So that's exactly what we're doing. 

The goal is to add a pilot coaching program for the Mandela ninth grade in the spring. Extra coach recruiting, led by WCC Volunteer Coordinator Lynn Mueller and Oakland Coordinator Karen Larson kicked immediately into gear, and six volunteers quickly signed on to the extra coach training sessions scheduled for December.

We're so pleased to be coaching at both Media and Mandela in Oakland, and we're especially pleased to be able to expand coaching at Mandela beyond the original program launch in September.

Want to join the excitement? Sign up today for the December coach training classes!

Bob Menzimer

Epic Teen Poems: “I am the Silence the Screams the Truth.”

The words “teenagers” and “poetry” have, in past years, sent me screaming for the exit, because I know precisely what horrendous things can happen when they meet. I know. I did them in my teen years: “Doom don’t talk to me about doom, I have seen it in the ice fields of my heart where the goblins dwell…etc. etc.” Thus, it was with some trepidation that I approached the final presentations of Ms. Totten-Harris’ Epic Poem assignment at the Media Academy, part of Oakland’s Fremont Federation of High Schools, on January 8, 2010.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. There is still a little tightness in the back of my throat from the emotional resonance of the epic poems created by Ms. Totten-Harris’ 10th graders. The students came out with deep, moving, heartfelt stanzas that not only amazed the tutors, but the students themselves. Their template was “I Am Joaquin/Yo Soy Joaquin” www.latinamericanstudies.org/latinos/joaquin.htm an epic poem by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales. What they came up with was a reminder that anyone is capable of greatness given enough attention, time and interest.
 
Some, in their readings, were like bantams, others quietly defiant, some shy and still others determined. Shima, the very first student up, a young woman from Yemen, had a green and beige veil, shy smile and big eyes. She started with a bang and a challenge.

“My generations have kept the cycle and I am going to break it.
The cycle of women not going to college.
I am going to break it….
I am a fast learner as fast as a bullet.
I am the next generation of Einstein’s.

Declaring her determination to be a doctor Shima asserted:

I hold a skill saw.
I break a head open.
It is cured.
I dream like a surgeon.
I am a surgeon. This is me.

One after another they stood up to tell their tales, some quietly, some hiding behind their papers, others strong and confident, moving with the poem's flow, grinning, laughing, even grim. Each opened places in their life and hearts most of us hide. After it was all over Alianna, a 10th grade Filipina, said how surprised she was at her classmates' efforts, adding, “You look at people differently” after hearing the poems.

There was pride, as one Mexican American concluded his poem with a rousing “Viva Mexico!” In many there was anger at being prejudged for who they are even before opening their mouths. Said Matreca, an ebullient student with coffee skin and a shock of bouncy frizzy pony-tailed hair:

“I’m tired of being categorized,
So I break the rules.
I am loud free and proud.
I love me who I am.
I am rock and roll.
I am like Elvis,
Stealing a culture back that is not mine!”

Students talked of reading and learning about Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, as well African kings and cultures from which some of their parent’s families were torn. Alianna explained how she was both the bomb “that blew up Pearl Harbor” and the Filipina guerrilla general who fought for her homeland against Ferdinand Magellan. Alejandro Vasquez, who ended his poem with “Viva Mexico!” also declared:

I am like a balloon blowing up with knowledge,
I am also a boy who loves to write poetry.

The latter statement was perhaps a risky one, given that Alejandro is a big burly teenager with slicked- back wavy dark hair who does not look like a young man prone to admitting his feelings. There were, however, surprises all round: unexpected self-awareness, difficult admissions and determinations to do better. Brandon, a small fierce Cambodian student, stood wearing a black hoody. Then with feet splayed, he said:

I have seen guns, bullets, drugs and things
But not love.
My parents taught me to do right
But I do wrong.
I have love for my family and want to be a better man.

If there was one consistency in the presentations it was family, and the importance of family. This even caught site coordinator Karen Larson a bit off guard, reminding her of the impact she has on her 10th grade children, even as they are in the midst of teenhood. One girl said — much to her own surprise — that she wanted to make her mom happy. Another admitted to scolding and yelling at her little sister, but only so she could learn to stand up for herself. Another lauded her mother, but of her father, said cuttingly: “I have nothing to say.”

These students, however, had plenty to say. Hailing from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South East and the Pacific Islands, they represented for the United Nations of East Oakland, an area that gets a bad rap and not enough recognition. When one Writing Coach noted lauding their hometown, the room broke out in applause, cheers and hollering pride. Another coach praised the students, noting: “You have the power in your words and you use them!” Unbidden the students returned the favor, one thanking her coach by name before reading her poem.

Alianna, the feisty yet shy, confident yet uncertain Filipinam blurted in the final moments of the class: “I like working with my writer coach. She helped me realize that I can be a good writer and I did not think I was. I have the potential to do good work!”

What more could we ask for as coaches?

Tim Kingston

WCC makes an impact in Oakland

Over the past year, our Oakland WriterCoach Connection site, Media Academy, achieved the highest Academic Performance Index (API) gain of any high school in the district--a giant leap of 79 points that exceeded Media's API growth target by a full 65 points.

We would never try to occupy the spotlight in recognition of achievement like this, when the proper bows should be taken by the hard-working district staff, the Media administrative and teaching staff, and Media students and families. But we are really excited to see Media's API gain, and grateful to Jeannie Johnson, director of College and Career Readiness for the Oakland Unified School District, who commented, "I was thrilled to see Media's improvement this year. Congratulations on your good work!"

The Academic Performance Index (API) is based on test-score performance through a two-year cycle. The base score is for the first year and the growth score is for the second. The scale is 200 to 1,000 and the statewide goal for all schools is 800. Media Academy's base score for 2008 was 521, the growth target was 535 and their growth result was a remarkable 600.

We hope to expand writer coaching at Media Academy this year to include not only the tenth graders but the twelfth-grade students as well, working on their Senior Projects. Media Academy is on a roll, and we're privileged and proud to be part of it!

Robert Menzimer

Oakland students' feedback on WCC: Off the charts!

At Media Academy in Oakland, the students being served by WCC volunteers have spoken, and did they get our attention! Preliminary results from this year's program assessment at Media offer powerful testament to student appreciation and support for WriterCoach Connection. EVERY tenth-grade student, without exception, indicated that coaching overall was helpful to some degree--not a single student said that coaching was not helpful. The average score for WCC on student surveys, on a scale of 4.0, was 3.37, the highest of all three high schools that WCC serves. And this from an age group not noted for expressing unbridled enthusiasm for things academic.

Specific comments from the students indicate that the Media students really appreciate the help, the individual attention they get from coaches, and the fact that coaches listen to the students' ideas and help them articulate what they are trying to get down on paper.

No wonder our coaches love volunteering at Media!

Bob Menzimer