WriterCoach Connection

Posting up for the Read-and-Write-a-thon!

WriterCoach Connection volunteer Olivier Compange (El Cerrito High School) has posted an appeal on his Facebook page, describing his experience as a writer coach and asking his friends to support the program with a donation to our Read-and-Write-a-thon on May 19. 

Please consider doing the same. If each of our 530 coaches asks ten friends and family members to give only $10 and if each of those friends and family members does it, we will exceed our $35,000 campaign goal by a wide margin. Every dollar helps!

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 

Revving up for coaching at Richmond High!

The words "writer coaching" fill the air in Richmond with increasing frequency these days, as we scout for volunteers in the community to serve as writer coaches at Richmond High starting this fall.

It's not too soon to register for the two six-hour training sessions, each spread over two days, a week apart. The training will take place at Richmond High on May 30th and June 6th from noon to 3:00 pm, and on June 12th and 19th, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.

We hope you'll raise your hand and join us in serving students and teachers at Richmond High this fall!

Bob Menzimer

Help Us Meet Our Annual Read-and-Write-a-thon Goal!

Asked to read a passage from your favorite book, what would you choose? Would you pick up a well-worn copy of Emily Dickinson? Cite from your latest book club find? Recall a childhood favorite like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or revisit the inspiring Gettsyburg Address?

On Saturday, May 19 from 8:00am-6:00pm at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, coaches and students will gather for our fourth annual Read-and-Write-a-thon to celebrate writing, ideas, and community by reading from favorite works.

Sponsor Our Readers! >

The Read-and-Write-a-thon is the critical spring fundraiser that enables us to continue reach out to more and more students who are just beginning to realize the importance of making their voices heard. This year we have expanded the WCC program to twelve locations and the need for community support is as great as ever. Your contribution means more coaches working with more students, delivering writing and critical thinking skills they need for a successful future!

We also welcome you to share your passion for the written word by choosing your favorite piece of writing and joining us for the live event. Prepare to be inspired by new and familiar works, as well as challenged by a game of high-stakes Literary Jeopardy.

Please forward this to friends and relatives who might also be interested in our work—we are deeply grateful for your help and your efforts to support WriterCoach Connection!

Note: Donating online at FirstGiving is simple and secure. If you prefer to donate by check, please make it payable to CAFL and mail it to: CAFL, PO Box 6098, Albany, CA 94706. Please write RWAT on the check memo line. All donations are tax deductible and will be acknowledged with a written receipt. Tax I.D. #91-2144555.

Inexorable growth brings WCC to the doorstep of Richmond High

WriterCoach Connection hatched in spring 2001, breaking out of its shell at Berkeley High School with 35 community volunteers working with 180 students. From that modest beginning, we have grown!

Within two years of its birth at Berkeley High, WCC had spread its wings to cover all of the Berkeley middle schools, and the program has been growing slowly but steadily ever since. This year, more than 500 community volunteers trained as writer coaches are sitting side by side with more than 2,000 students at a dozen schools in four East Bay districts.

After spreading north to Albany in fall 2003 and south to Oakland in fall 2008, we crossed the border into West Contra Costa County last year, with a pilot program at El Cerrito High School. Since then, we have grown faster in West County than anywhere else, with an expanded program at El Cerrito High this year, a pilot program this spring at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito, and planning now under way for our first program in Richmond.

On the heels of the intense community interest that brought WCC to El Cerrito last year and has kept it there this year, it was the West County school district that generated the vision for WCC at Richmond High. At a meeting last December in his office, Superintendent  Bruce Harter announced that he wanted us at Richmond High, said he had identified the funding, and asked how quickly we could get it done. The answer was fall 2012, and we have been recruiting Richmond community volunteers ever since, with training sessions planned for later this spring and during the summer.

Our pilot program at Richmond High this fall will focus on English Language Development students in Level 4, the English fluency stage that immediately precedes a student's entry into mainstream classes. We project to serve about 150 students, and will need 60 coaches to work with them. If you'd like to be part of our first program in Richmond, contact Dave Moss at 510.233.3088.

We're excited to bring WriterCoach Connection to Richmond students and teachers at long last, a dozen years after the program's first peep at Berkeley High!

Bob Menzimer

Report from the coaching front lines

Coach Peter Geraghty, who works with students at both El Cerrito High School and at Berkeley High, reports regularly on his experiences with students, and his accounts offer a valuable view of what writer coaching is really like. Here is part of Peter's account from a coaching day last week:

"At BHS, on Thursday morning, I worked with students that I've worked with before and began to see some of the benefits of continuity.  I'm not claiming huge changes, but one student  I've now met about four or five times has become more and more open about the kind of hurt she has suffered in school. The teacher has given the class lots of room to vent and I've encouraged the student to write honestly about injustice.  She's begun to change from someone who was beaten down, felt kinda hopeless, to someone who wants to be heard; she's a little bit less afraid of failing, of getting in trouble and a little more comfortable with speaking up.  I really hope it sticks; this would give me the reason for volunteering." 

I'll recount more of Peter's coaching experiences as he continues to report on them.

Bob Menzimer