Bulletin News
04/01/2010
SUNY Cortland’s Seven Valleys Writing Project (SVWP) will offer a half-day workshop, “Writing to Learn in the Social Studies Classroom,” on Saturday, April 17, at Homer High School in Homer, N.Y.
The SVWP is part of the National Writing Project based at SUNY Cortland, a grassroots organization of teachers who are learning and teaching the craft of writing to their students and to each other. Seminars are offered in collaboration with the Cortland County Teacher Center.
“We’ve seen the transformative power of ‘writing to learn’ in our own classrooms and we can’t wait to share our best practices with you,” observes SVWP co-director David Franke, an associate professor of English at SUNY Cortland. He and SVWP co-director Brian Fay, an English teacher for Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Counties Board of Cooperative Educational Services (OCM-BOCES), will facilitate the workshop.
The teacher-consultants who will be presenting are Joe Cortese, a social studies teacher at Homer High School; and Kathryn Cenera, a middle school teacher from Ithaca City School District.
The seminar, from 8:30 a.m.-noon in the school library Media Learning Center on the second floor, is geared for social studies teachers in grades 7-12.
The $25 fee includes a light breakfast and coffee. To register, contact one of the following individuals: Franke or (607) 753-5945; Fay or (315) 440-1289; or Cortese or (607) 423-1092.
“The beauty of writing to learn is that it’s more a way of thinking, planning and teaching than it is content or skill,” said Cortese, the 2009 teacher-consultant for the SVWP and a presenter at the upcoming program. “So, every educator who delivers social studies content will take away very valuable learning.”
“If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels trying to get kids to write about anything, we think we have some ways for you to solve these problems,” Franke said. “This session will be highly interactive, presented by teachers for teachers. You will leave with at least one new skill to apply in your social studies classroom.”
Cortese encouraged educators to attend not only the morning seminar on April 17 but also the upcoming Summer Institute, of which he was a participant last year.
“It taught me a truly powerful and transformative way to approach teaching history, government and economics,” he said. “Now, I use writing in the classroom and as homework as often as a learning mechanism as I use it for assessment. And my students learn — about the content and about themselves — as they write about what we do in class, what they read and what they think.”
Since 2008, the College has operated a local branch of the National Writing Project, funded through the federal Department of Education, as a means of helping outstanding teachers across Central New York improve their practice through writing and research. In all, 26 area educators have been trained as master educators. They returned to their home districts to share their new knowledge with colleagues and students by conducting professional development demonstrations after school hours.
For more information about the Seven Valleys Writing Project and the upcoming Summer Institute for teachers in many different disciplines, visit www.7vwp.com.