WriterCoach Connection

A Coach's Perspective: Jeff Schauer reflects on the start of the year

Jeff Schauer is a student of colonial history at UC Berkeley and the author of the personal blog California Mwananchi. Jeff is also a writer coach, and this week was inspired to describe his experience during a very busy day of coaching at Berkeley High School and Williard Middle School. He leads in by reflecting:

I’d had a year hiatus from volunteering with the Writer Coach program in Berkeley, and returning to the two school campuses provided me with a moment to think about just what it is that keeps the volunteers coming back year after year. 

After eloquently describing the environment of coaching in general and Berkeley High in particular, he reflects:

Generally, coaches work with students on a brainstorming exercise, a pre-write, or a rough draft.  The beauty of the program is that it doesn’t discriminate.  Volunteers work with students of all writing levels—from those who struggle to get so much as a word down on the page to those who compose fluent prose essays with an enviable ease.  This way there’s no stigma of being hauled off to spend 20-50 minutes with an adult who is, in the high school mind, self-evidently un-cool.  There’s always a little bit of awkwardness in the first meetings, as coaches and students size each other up, but it’s magical to see how, during the course of the year, both parties are changed by the experience.  A coach who might start out skeptical of the abilities of an indifferent-seeming student, who might feel that they, an upper- middle-class professional might struggle to connect with an ESL student or one who might, at any time, find him- or herself without a meal or a place to live for the night.  A student who seems like a hard-bitten youth will inevitably reveal something of themselves through their writing, they’ll begin to develop a method that works for approaching an essay, and I think that most of them come to enjoy the half-hour of the week—probably the only half-hour—when they have the undivided attention of someone who is taking what they have to say seriously.

Jeff describes fitting an hour or two of coaching a week around his schedule as a local student—and more importantly, into his community perspective:

It is easy, as a student, to find that your world has become very small.  Academic work is never finished, and when your days start before the sun is up and end with nodding off on your books in the library long after it has gone down, your horizons grow constricted.  Taking part in WCC’s brilliant program has made Berkeley feel more like a home and less like a stopping-over point on the way to somewhere else. Meeting the coordinators and other volunteers, the warmest, most committed and giving community I’ve ever encountered, has been wonderful.  Meeting students, many of them with heavier stories than I’ve heard anywhere else, all of them with great ideas—sometimes below the surface, at other times overflowing—has been an honour. 

Jeff's summary is warm with praise—it makes us glow because it's exactly the feeling we want each and every coach to experience! We thank every coach for making the journey to become a writer coach, and ive an extra thanks to Jeff for expressing his experience in a way that means to much to all of us.

This volunteer program flies neither by night nor by the seat of its pants, and you walk away from each session with a sense of accomplishment and the idea that you’ve taken part in something which—although often challenging—is part of a bigger cause.

 

Enjoy Jeff's full story!

Christine McGuinness
via BHS Site Coordinator Sahib-Amar Khalsa

One Donation. Two Tickets. Three Michaels!

Donate to WriterCoach Connection today, and you will be entered to win two tickets to The Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation, hosted by Berkeleyside on December 10!

On November 15, WCC will announce four lucky donors who have each won a pair of tickets to this terrific conversation between authors Michael Chabon, Michael Pollan, and Michael Lewis at Berkeley Repertory Theatre—a prize worth $200!

DONATE NOW for a chance to win >

A donation of only $5 enters you in the drawing, but the more you give, the more chances you have to win—we'll throw in one extra entry with each $25. A $5 donation earns you one chance, a $25 earns you 6 chances, and a $50 donation earns you 12 chances. All donations for this raffle support the work of WriterCoach Connection: helping kids gain skill and confidence in their writing.

This is a sold-out show—so these are the only 4 pairs of tickets left!

The Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation is a benefit to support 826 Oakland, a new youth writing program in the East Bay. We extend heartfelt thanks to Berkeleyside for hosting the event and donating the tickets in support of WCC. We're looking forward to a terrific evening with the three Michaels!

 

More about the 3 Michaels (biographies from Amazon.com):

Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves in Their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Maps and Legends, Gentlemen of the Road, and the middle grade book Summerland. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children. You can visit Michael online at www.michaelchabon.com. 

Michael Lewis, the author of Boomerang, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.

Michael Pollan is the author of five books: Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, which received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best nonfiction work of 2001 and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon, and the national bestsellers, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. A longtime contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. His writing on food and agriculture has won numerous awards, including the Reuters/World Conservation Union Global Award in Environmental Journalism, the James Beard Award, and the Genesis Award from the American Humane Association.

Christine McGuinness

Berkeleyside picks up our call for volunteers!

Thank you to the local independent news site Berkeleyside.com for sharing WCC's volunteer opportunity with its readers! 

Read the article > 

If you're looking for a rewarding volunteer opportunity, we encourage you to register now for WCC's 2012-13 coaching year, which is fast approaching. As the article aptly puts it, "WriterCoach Connection warmly welcomes parents, college students, working and retired people, and community members of all backgrounds, ethnicities and walks of life." Register today!

Christine McGuinness

Summer recruitment heats up!

WriterCoach Connection attends many of the east bay's summer street fairs to get out the word about our rewarding volunteer program. Most recently, representatives spread the word about our fulfilling volunteer opportunity at Berkeley's Juneteenth Festival and El Cerrito's 4th of July Festival. 

We're excited to be in contact with potential new coaches like Carolyn Ozonsi (at left in photo). Board member Cynthia Barnes-Slater, at right, was one of many WCC members who shared their WCC experience with festival-goers and encouraged them to sign up!

Berkeley Public Education Foundation affirms support of WCC

We were so gratified last week to be awarded a grant from the Berkeley Public Education Foundation to support our writer coaching in the Berkeley middle schools, the 11th (!) grant from BPEF in the 12-year history of WriterCoach Connection. 

Our long partnership with the staff and board of BPEF includes not only funding but collaboration in volunteer registration and coach training in Berkeley. We're big fans of BPEF and hope our joint effort on behalf of Berkeley schools continues for many years to come!

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

WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley High: teacher wants more!

We're planning the continuation of WCC for next year at Berkeley High's Green Academy, where we are coaching 12th grade students this year. Teacher Dagny Dingman is hoping we can expand writer coaching next year to include Green's 9th grade composition classes.

In the course of conversations about next year, Dagny had this to say about WCC:

"The program has been fabulous, has worked very well with my courses. The students have gotten a lot out of their work with coaches. Their writing has become more autonomous, less about me directing the writing process, and more about them being engaged in the writing process as it comes from them and from their work with people besides me. Their work therefore more accurately reflects what they'll be doing with their writing after high school, when they'll be more on their own. WCC also forces me to assign more writing, so the kids simply do more of it. We work on assignments longer, with more revisions. For the students, writing becomes less of an isolated activity, more of a constant exercise. WCC helps to demystify writing for my students."

We certainly hope to be back at Green next year, with writing support for students at Green Academy, and for Dagny and her teaching colleagues.

Bob Menzimer

Remember when it was summer?

The winds of autumn may be blowing Bay Area leaves around and there may even be rain in the forecast, but summer isn't so far back in our rear-view mirrors. Even as East Bay classes swing into their second month of the new school year and we resume fall writer coaching, I'm reminded of a remarkable scene that played out again in Berkeley classrooms a short time ago: writer coaching in summer school.

As they've been doing for a number of years, WCC associates Priscilla Myrick and Jeanine Brown organized a flock of our writer coaches to volunteer in summer-school classes this year. The coaches supported the two 7th grade English classes (more than 60 students) taught by King Middle School English and Read 180 teacher Steven Conley. More than 20 experienced coaches provided 200+ hours of one-on-one coaching for five consecutive Tuesday mornings over the course of the five-week summer session. The coaches provided almost 250 individual half-hour coaching sessions, working with every student every week. Whenever possible, the same coach was assigned with the same student, a key ingredient in the formula that helps build a relationship and allows students and coaches to build on previous sessions, maximizing the development of writing and critical thinking skills.

Mr. Conley wrote a heart-felt appreciation to the coaches, affirming, "The improvement was beyond anything I had expected. The students' weekly test scores raised from 2.3 to 3.1. On a four-point scale, this is massive growth. I also firmly believe that the dropout rate would have been much higher, without the writing coaches." 

We like to think of WriterCoach Connection as a value-added service in many ways, and summer-school coaching in Berkeley is one of them!

Bob Menzimer

 

Teachers tell why they love WriterCoach Connection

Teachers today face daunting curricular loads and badly overcrowded classrooms. Imagine trying to cram in the required instructional material while attempting to give individual attention to up to 30 students in a class. Virtually impossible. So imagine the impact on a teacher who has a team of trained coaches on hand to offer one on one writing support to every student in class.

No need to imagine it. Here's what the teachers say.

Remarks Caitlin Alastra, a Longfellow Middle School teacher in Berkeley who serves students in Read 180 classes, for students performing below and far below grade level:

"I taught my students last year in 6th grade so I can say from experience that my Read 180 students   are producing much more high-quality writing as 7th graders, thanks to the support of the writer coaches. On several occasions my students have returned from meeting with their coaches elated by words of encouragement from their coach.  For these students, being able to express their ideas in writing is a huge victory.  I'm deeply appreciative for the positive experiences with writing the writer coaches have facilitated with these emerging writers."

Caitlin's Read 180 teaching colleague Nina Ziskin notes:

"Many of the Read 180 students were initially resistant to the idea of working with the writer coaches. I believe they are afraid of exposing their low skills to strangers. However, as the year has progressed, the students are more willing to receive assistance from the coaches, and have even begun to state that they find it helpful. 

"The students' increased willingness to take advantage of an opportunity for assistance, despite the risks to their self-esteem, is one of the benefits I have observed this year. I think this improvement is at least partly related to the coaches' willingness to modify their approach to meet the individual needs of each student. I am hopeful that the students are learning the value of taking a risk and accepting help when it is offered. 

 "One academic difference I notice from last year (when Read 180 didn't have coaches) is that the students are writing longer paragraphs, with more detail.

"Finally, it must be obvious, but there is no way the students could get this much individual attention   from just one teacher." 

 And from Albany Middle School teacher Jamie Heans:

"Considering the number of students in a classroom (thirty or so students, one teacher), it’s a real challenge to teach writing.  One of the best interventions to overcome that ratio is WriterCoach Connection. I couldn’t give students this kind of one-on-one attention at this point.

 "I’ve noticed that with writer coaching, the students’ papers are dramatically better. Students respond to the coaching and will tell you that they enjoy it. I’ve heard them  make comments like, 'My writer coach really liked my piece! She wrote lots of comments about it.' Students feel honored and valued as writers when volunteers come in and give them this one-on-one attention.  

"This is valuable contact time. The student-coach pairing is a great relationship."

We're deeply grateful to these dedicated teachers who go out of their way to craft writing assignments for writer-coach support and represent a key factor in the success of WriterCoach Connection.

 

Bob Menzimer                                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

Through a writer coach's eyes

Charles Burress is a former staff writer with the San Francisco Chronicle and current editor of the online El Cerrito Patch. As WriterCoach Connection gained steam last fall in its inaugural year at El Cerrito High School, Charles wanted to communicate the experience of being a new WCC volunteer to his Patch readers. I thought his words would really resonate for anyone who is thinking about signing up to be a WCC volunteer; they almost certainly echo the experience of many veteran writer coaches. Here's what Charles had to say:

 

"When I volunteered last year to be a 'writing coach' for young teens in Berkeley and Albany schools, I immediately began to fear I'd made a big mistake.

"I'd never done such a thing and had no idea how to go about it. I pictured myself nervous and flummoxed by bored, fidgety youngsters who had a thousand other things they'd rather be doing.
Luckily, however, I had signed up with a terrific East Bay program called WriterCoach Connection. No previous experience was necessary, and after two well-crafted training sessions, I was issued my ID and a starting date at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley.

"I was still nervous in that first one-on-one coaching session, but I quickly discovered that the training had prepared me well. The students were listening and responding. Their willingness to follow through and apply the suggestions they heard varied, of course, but the great majority of them were tuned in and eager to learn.

"By the time I finished several weeks later, I had developed a keen interest in how 'my kids' were progressing. The delight I felt in seeing their work gradually improve was much greater than I would have predicted, and I still remember moments of discovery and increased self-confidence that brightened their faces.

"I'm recalling my experience now because I want to encourage interested readers to consider making a difference in a young person's life.

"Don't worry about not knowing how to go about it. Having begun ten years ago in Berkeley, the program has evolved a surprisingly effective training program -- consisting of two sessions -- that prepares the volunteer coaches well. The training is also an enjoyable way to meet some of the fellow coaches. My sessions even had free cookies.

"Many of us can recall a single sentence or piece of advice that some adult told us when we were young that left a lasting impression on our minds, perhaps on our lives. The adults, however, seldom know when they've planted such a seed.

"WriterCoach Connection, in my view, offers a rich garden where the guidance of adults may enjoy a much higher yield.

"The harvest, as it should be, belongs chiefly to the youth -- an increased ability to find their own voice, to express themselves more effectively and to take pride in their work.

"But there are rewards for the adults too."

When Charles looks up from his vantage point as a WCC volunteer, this is what he sees: pairs of students and coaches in the King writer-coaching room, working intently on the teacher's assignment, focused on the development of the students' writing and critical thinking skills.

Many thanks to Charles for sharing his experience as a WCC volunteer!

Bob Menzimer