This year our world as we knew it changed.
For months now, shifts in our instructional contexts have led us to think more deeply and differently about our practice and, more than ever, about meeting the needs of our students. While holding on to our core values of equity and social justice, we are reaffirming what works in writing instruction—in any context—and innovating to meet the demands of the moment.
This year’s Bay Area Writing Project Forum offers educators a place to share individual stories of what has reoriented and grounded us over this past year, and provides a time to share lessons we have learned and relearned about what matters most in writing instruction.
Values/Principles:
- Changing teaching modalities requires us to be both innovative and grounded in our approaches to writing instruction.
- As both a healing process and a way to promote social-emotional learning, writing raises awareness, develops and cultivates empathy, forges connections, processes loss, and imagines change.
- Our approach to teaching is shaped by the reality that disruptions in schooling disproportionately burden Black and Brown students and their families.
- As teachers, we recognize that we operate within a white supremacist power structure. Given this reality, we can nevertheless reevaluate pedagogy, developing a reflective and responsible teaching practice that provides opportunities to promote equity and challenge racist systems.
- When teachers deliberately select and investigate curricula that resonate with current events that matter to students, we engage students and increase their ability to think and write critically.
- Teachers of writing make students feel safe and connected by dedicating time to building community and rapport in the classrooms (virtual or in-person).
- By revisiting our multiple identities and values as educators in changing learning environments, teachers emerge with a renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Inquiry Questions:
- In what ways have we already redefined the classroom through adapted instruction?
- In what ways do these new “landscapes” encourage meaningful innovation?
- What foundational practices related to writing instruction are both versatile and enduring?
- How can we encourage students to not only attend class, but also become active members of a community of writers?
- How can teachers creatively and empathetically respond to situations in which students do not have the resources they need to thrive in different learning environments?
- What teaching practices foster honest conversations among students about difficult subjects such as racism, inequity, and grief?
- How do we prioritize rigor and creativity to allow students to successfully demonstrate what they know and have learned?
Conference Norms:
- Support each other as learners and leaders.
- Distractions happen - practice returning to the present.
- Utilize the mute feature while listening.
- Keep your screens on (unless your technology prevents this).
- Have a generosity of spirit towards each other as we work within this technology.
Need a letter confirming your participation in this event? Submit your request here.
Keynote Interview
A Conversational Tour of the Shifting Landscape (passcode: joinus!)
Listen in as teachers offer their successes and frustrations in virtual classrooms, and share how they negotiated the need to maintain academic rigor while supporting the social and emotional needs of their students.
Jennifer Cook Sterling has been a BAWP TC since 2006. She teaches 5th grade language arts and history at Kent Middle School in Marin County. After five months of online teaching, Jennifer has worked in hybrid mode since November, simultaneously teaching students in a classroom and online five days a week.
For the past 15 years, BAWP Director Hillary Walker has taught middle and high school English and History courses in Berkeley and Oakland; this year, she is teaching courses in African American history through the College of Alameda.
M. Clare LePell has been teaching English for 35 years at Castro Valley High School, all grade levels. She became a BAWP TC in 1993 and has taught summer courses and led a variety of workshops throughout the Bay Area.
John Levine joined the College Writing Programs faculty at UC Berkeley in 1997 after working for a decade in radio and television. A professional playwright, he has had work produced throughout the United States, as well as in India, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and the U.K.
Session 1
Evaluation for Session 1 Workshop
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Session 1 Workshops
Click on the workshop title for zoom link
- Cancelled - Author’s Chair in the Virtual Elementary Classroom (please select another workshop of your choice)
- What is My Linguistic History?
- Student Journalists: Reporting on the Pandemic to Develop Empathy
- Nurturing Student Engagement: Interactive Digital Learning - Part 1 Pedagogy
- Conscientization-Writing for Transformation
- What is Owed since 1619?
- Asking the Right Question – the Critical Question
Student Panel
The Student Experience (Passcode: joinus!)
Students reflect on being learners, thinkers, and humans in a pandemic.
Alaina is a junior currently attending Castro Valley High School. She enjoys reading, watching shows, and creating art. She hopes to pursue graphic design in her future.
Bryan is a junior at Life Academy High School in Oakland who gets good grades. When Bryan isn't working on school he is playing soccer and improving his game.
Jesse is a sophomore at Castro Valley High School. His interests include history, geopolitics, and video games, and he hopes to get a career in the Department of State, possibly as a diplomat. Becoming a content creator wouldn't be too bad either, as he already streams on Twitch.
Kenya is a currently a junior at Life Academy High School in Oakland. Kenya loves studying neurology and interesting facts about the brain. She also really loves competitive swimming!
Session 2
Evaluation for Session 2 Workshop
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Session 2 Workshops
Click on the workshop title for zoom link
- The Power of Exploration: Building Autonomy, Perspective, and Storytelling Through Geo-Inquiry
- Elevating Equity and SEL through Writing
- The Power of Paraphrasing in Developing Student Voice
- Nurturing Student Engagement: Interactive Digital Learning - Part 2 Praxis
- Debating the Narrative: Using Collaboration and Discussion to Re-write History
- Creativity As A Door to The Self--As a Place to Form and Transform Knowledge
- Thriving in the Thick of It: Hip hop as Foundational Practice for Fostering Learning During Times of Crisis
- Write NOW?! WRITE now!
We miss you, Friend, with so much love and gratitude: A Tribute to Mark Ali
In August 2020, the world lost a lovely human—a dad, husband, brother, uncle, son, grandson, confidante, truth teller, writer, artist, and teacher. Though our dear friend and beloved colleague Mark Ali passed, the loving impact he had on so many of us holds strong.
In Mark’s words: “I didn't like high school, and wanted to be the teacher I never had … I was inspired by two people, one before I was in the profession, my college professor freshman year at Contra Costa College, Dr. Colston Westbrook and the other after I was in it, my first year at Tennyson High (HUSD), Sulaiman Ali. Both inspired and encouraged by the work they did, in and outside of the classroom with the students and the communities they served. I wanted to emulate that work from the heart.”
He kept at teaching, despite the endless challenges, because it meant “Paying it forward. Carrying on tradition. I want to do my part in nation-building. I want students to understand, to realize that they are born with everything they need to succeed.”
The use of teaching to realize equitable outcomes for all students necessitates that teachers learn from students and from other teachers. We learn from students when we read their writing and listen to what they are saying. We learn from our fellow teachers when we enter into community, affording collective engagement in the cognitive pursuits of our practice.
As a BAWP Teacher Consultant, Mark ensured that his numerous gifts as a thinker, writer, and teacher impacted other teachers and students beyond the walls of his classroom. He led professional development workshops at UC Berkeley and in schools and districts across the Bay Area. He served on the lead team of several Invitational Summer Institutes (ISI). He participated in long-running BAWP writing groups and led ISI writing groups. He was instrumental to the creation of the BAWP Forum.
Mark’s workshops were powerful and memorable. They supported us in growing to be the teachers we most hope to become. And we learned from Mark the invaluable role that Cardi B can play in student learning. We saw what happened to the learning potential of the students he served as he adjusted traditional academic instructional language—revise, edit, elaborate, structure—to language that more closely resonated with young writers and thinkers— “respecting the architect” in place of “responding or editing”, “excavating” in place of “close reading of a text.” We learned how dreaded Mondays could be transformed into “Pop Culture Mondays.”
As a writer, Mark touched readers of the Forge Journal, Lalitamba Magazine, Digital Paper, Pearl, Zillah, Occam's Razor, and Rad Dad. Shortly before Mark passed, he completed his MA in writing and was working to complete his novel, A New Kind of Fool. He spoke to schooling, race, and the disconnect between policing and community in his piece, “Flying By” and spoke to his need to write in his piece “why I write.”
In 2017, Mark was the keynote speaker at our second BAWP Forum, Writing as Civic Engagement. I had the privilege of introducing him and wanted to make sure I honored him right when I did so. When I asked him, “Anything in particular that you’d like me to include when I introduce you?” His response, “Nah, not fussy.” That was Mark—not fussy. Brilliant, full of heart, deeply inspiring, talented and committed. But not fussy.
We miss you, Friend, with so much love and gratitude.
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