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