WriterCoach Connection

Coaching is many things--and learning is one of them

WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley is an official UC Berkeley student organization, formed specifically to recruit Cal students as WCC coaches. Cal students have poured into the program, delighting the students and teachers we serve.

Lindsay Parrish is one of those coaches. In the account below, she offers remarkable insight into the sometimes complex nature of the WCC mentoring relationships, their special challenges,and their rewards, for both the students and the coaches. Read her words and you'll have little doubt there's a remarkable teacher in the making.

                I joined WCC three and a half years ago.  At the time, tutoring through WCC seemed to be a great way to pursue my passion for teaching.

                When I first started tutoring, I was extremely frustrated.  Most of my students never came in with any work prepared, a few rarely had any of their reading done.  As you can imagine, it is difficult to coach someone who doesn’t seem to have anything to be “coached” on. 

                But when you tutor someone one-on-one over the course of a semester, you tend to learn a lot about them.  I remember one student in particular (I’ll refer to him as J-).  J- would be asked to write about To Kill a Mockingbird but would instead talk to me about robots and aliens.  I’d ask him what he thought about the book and he would tell me every time, “Oh, it’s boring….but I drew this awesome robot today…” 

                I was surprised when one Thursday morning J- brought to me a completed essay.  The students had been asked to write an essay about how they thought Obama being elected president would change their lives.  J- wrote about how when Obama was elected president, his mom would be able to quit her night job and that he would no longer have to watch his little brother after school.  He wrote about how his mom would be able to afford a house and they would not have to worry about paying rent.  Suddenly the robot-inspired fantasies of this thirteen-year-old boy seemed to be his only childhood link.  At thirteen, this student had more responsibilities than I myself had had at the age of twenty.  As I continued to read his essay it became clear why this student rarely completed his work.  His responsibilities to his family consumed most of his spare time.                    

                I guess what I am trying to say is this.  It’s pretty easy to write someone off as being “lazy.”  But if you search a bit deeper, past the missing rough drafts or the apparent lack of motivation which a student seems to display, you’ll often find there is something more attributing to the situation.  Over the years I’ve worked with students where English was their second or even their third language.  I’ve met students who were responsible for the care of multiple siblings while their parents worked late shifts.  I’ve met students who are so far behind in their grade level that they were too embarrassed to speak up and get the help they need.  It’s a challenge, but one of the best things about being a tutor is you can adapt and change to help meet specific needs, something that may be difficult for a teacher in a larger classroom setting.  And not every student will be in this situation.  I guarantee you’ll have students whose thoughts are so well put together that they do not seem to need any guidance at all! 

            I think that one of the greatest rewards of being a tutor is that we are forever students.  Learning does not stop when we step into the role of the educator.  Learning from our students about our students is probably the most effective way to help meet individual needs.  

No wonder the students we work with love their Cal coaches!

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

When a teacher becomes a WCC volunteer

We always say you don't have to be a teacher (or a writer, or an editor) to become a WCC coach, and it's true: our coaches come from a wide variety of backgrounds. But former teachers frequently sign up for training and become WCC coaches, perhaps because they value what they never had while standing in front of a classroom and looking out over 30 or more expectant faces: the time to work with students individually.

Marge Atkinson is a long-time Albany resident and community activist, a veteran Albany teacher and officer of the Albany Teachers Association, and currently a member of the Albany City Council and Albany's mayor. And now she has a sparkling new addition to her lengthy public-service list: she recently completed her WCC training and is a newly minted writer coach! Here's what Marge has to say about her newest role:

"The WriterCoach Connection training emphasized how important it was to make a personal connection with each student and be an adult that encouraged the ideas, voice and cues of what the student wanted to work on in each session.  For many of the participants, it was hard not to feel like we wanted to 'instruct' a student, but that this was not our role.  We are to be there to guide the student in his or her own direction and to be a friendly, supportive and helpful presence.  It was an eye-opener to be instructed, by an English teacher (!) that it was not the grammar and mechanics that we needed to know, but that it would be our effort and success in establishing a positive relationship with each student that would make us a great writing coach mentor."

It's wonderful to see WCC teacher/coaches with the time to sit with students individually, for a half hour or more at a time, bringing to each student years of classroom experience and dedication, and so clearly appreciative of their new role. Many thanks to Marge for continuing her commitment to Albany's children!

Bob Menzimer

The impact of WCC? Ask a student.

Stories about what happens when a coach sits down to work with a student best describe the heart of WriterCoach Connection, the impact that this attention has on a student, and the reason why coaches keep coming back, year after year. Here's a story from WCC coach and Longfellow Middle School site co-coordinator Mark Pasley:

"A girl I coached at Longfellow today had written an essay on Of Mice and Men, and she got the paper back from her teacher right when I picked her up from the classroom.  She said 'Oh, I got a 4,' which she informed me was like getting an 'A.'  Of course I made sure to praise her, but during the coaching session as we read through the paper it became clear that she needed to proofread her work, and that was the main advice I had for her.  As she read through it she made various corrections, and whenever I questioned something she immediately knew how to fix it.  At the end of the session she seemed grateful and said, 'The writer coaches have really helped me.  This was the first time I've gotten a 4 on a paper.  I used to always get 2's.'  When I looked in her folder I saw that she'd only been coached twice so far this year.  Even so, she still felt the impact of WCC."

The impact of working in the WCC program is something that Mark has transferred to the whole Community Alliance for Learning organization. Last year when the program was facing a severe budget crunch, he and his Longfellow site coordination partner Annie Stine cooked up a fundraising idea, which they dubbed the Read-and-Write-a-thon (RWAT). RWAT turned out to be, by a wide margin, the most successful fundraising event in the program's history, attracting an astonishing $30,000 in donations in just two months. Here's Mark (below), setting up for RWAT last year. He and Annie are now planning this year's version of the event, scheduled for Saturday, May 1.

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

Poetry workshop to benefit WCC jumps off at Albany Middle School

The Hear Me Out! fundraising poetry workshop to benefit WriterCoach Connection got off to an energetic start this morning (February 2) at Albany Middle School, as five lively AMS students materialized in Bob Pressnall's classroom at 8 a.m. for an orientation to the workshop. Alex, Briana, Christina, Jordan, and Luna heard about the plans for them to work individually with local poets once a week for seven weeks, beginning this Thursday. Albany poets Robert Martin and Laura Riggs then wasted no time in getting the students (and themselves, and Mr. Pressnall, and me!) to put pen to paper and compose poems in sixty seconds, followed by a laughter- and applause-filled reading of each poem.

Our five young poets said they had other friends interested in coming to the first official workshop session on Thursday (Feb. 4), and AMS teacher Abby Skrivan also said she had additional students who planned to be there.

The workshop sessions will culminate in a benefit poetry reading on Sunday, March 28, 4 - 6 p.m. at the Thousand Oaks Baptist Church in Berkeley, at 1821 Catalina Avenue. (Click here for map.) Our young poets will read their work and WriterCoach Connection participants will talk about the impact the program has had on their lives. Everyone is invited, the event is free, and donations to WCC will be gratefully accepted.

Find information about the March 28 Hear Me Out! poetry reading finale here. The Hear Me Out! fundraising project is sponsored by the East Bay Nation of Men (EBNOM). Get information about EBNOM here.

Bob Menzimer