LAWP Site announcement (SLWP Memoir Writing Program)

The SLWP will be hosting a 5 week long program on memoir writing at their Livingston Center. For those of you who are interested in finding out more about this program, please visit the LAWP Site tab on our home page at www.lsuwritingproject.org.

Volunteers Needed for Bookmark Booth!

Connie McDonald has put out a request for volunteers to help with the LSUWP Bookmark Booth during this year's Festival of the Book held on November 3rd on the grounds of the State Capital.

here are he time details:

The Awards Ceremony is from 9-10 in the State Museum, and from 10-4 we will be in the Children's Writing Tent making bookmarks! Shifts are 10-12 ; 12-2 ; 2-4.

Please contact me if you are willing to help with one or more of those shifts!
jwall3@lsu.edu

Fall Showcase: Grant Writing Jamboree!

The LSUWP invites you to attend our Fall Writing Showcase and Grant Writing Jamboree. Click here to see the flyer!

NEWSLETTER! The Pinnacle October 2007

The latest edition of The Pinnacle is now available online at our web site. You may find it here.

Reminder to Summer 2007 TC's

You were sent an email with a survey to be completed for Inverness Research about your experience this summer. Everyone who completes the survey and returns it to the email or snail mail given in the email will receive a copy of the Summer 07 Anthology in the mail. I have received only 3 responses so far. Please get this done as we need 100% participation. Your timely response is appreciated.

Thanks,

Jared Wall
Technology Liaison -- who can give a 2 hour lecture without standing ;)

First Thursdays at La Carreta!

Don't miss this opportunity to gather with teachers from around the parish--and other parishes. Bring ideas, suggestions, or questions from your classroom to share with others. Enjoy the camaraderie and the libations.

Contact Cynthia Edmonston with any questions.

cedmon1@lsu.edu

Thanks,

Jared Wall
Technology Liaison

Updates to the Website!

As you may have noticed, we have been working to add some more useful items to the website. You may look up to the main navigation bar under the LSUWP logo and see that we have added a "Site Calendar" tab and a "LAWP Sites" tab. These two tabs will give you information on upcoming events. The site calendar uses google calendar and displays all upcoming events. You may see more information by clicking on the event itself. Maps, directions, who is in charge of the event, and other useful tid bits can be found here. The LAWP tab is for events being hosted by sites other than the LSUWP that you may want to attend.

You may also have noted the information in the middle of the screen. This is a new tool that lists our most recent blog posts right here on the fron of our website. i will try to keep this updated regularly. Look for this to include listserv email contents in the future.

Thanks,

Jared Wall
jwall3@lsu.edu
Technology Liaison

LSU Writing Project CONVOCATION!

The LSU Writing Project's 2007 Convocation will be on the campus of Louisiana State University at the Lod Cook Alumni Center.

Details:

May 20, 2007
3pm-5pm
Lod Cook Alumni Center

We will have a guest poet as our featured speaker:
Ava Leavell Haymon
The Strict Economy of Fire
Kitchen Heat

Click here for directions to Lod Cook.

JOIN US FOR A TECHY GOOD TIME!

Visit the website by clicking here.

Then click on the link in the middle of the page to download the flyer!

Session #1 Will be held Saturday, April 14 from 9-noon. We will meet in Peabody Hall on LSU's campus. Email Jared with questions or to reserve a seat at the workshop.

jwall3@lsu.edu

New Design for the BLOG

In an effort to upgrade and update the site blog, I have moved the blog from the old blogger format to the new Blogger (beta)--well used to be beta--format. This version is much easier to manage and add things to. You will notice that I am now able to make the blog match (somewhat) the colors of our website. I have also added a list on the side panel for those who would like to submit any books they recommend be read by other TC's.

Happy Posting!

Take a leg and pass it left.

Nashville! It's finger-licking good!!!

Image courtesy of Monell's.

LSUWP Christmas Social Details

We will be gathering on Thursday, December 14th, 2006, at 4PM!

Place: Monjunis Italian Restaurant
711 Jefferson Hwy
Baton Rouge, LA

PLEASE BRING A WRAPPED ORNAMENT TO EXCHANGE!!!!!

Live Blogging from the LSUWP Fall Showcase

Begin (9:20AM)

Welcome and Introduction by Dr. Willis
- 14 people in attendance from both St. Charles and EBRP.
- What the LSUWP has done since the beginning of school this year.
*Became part of the GEARUP grant. Focuses on middle schools. It pays for 20 teachers and their tuitions and stipends for Summer Institute as well as salaries for the director and co-director. This will run for six years. We have also been asked to do ongoing professional development. 5.5 MILLION DOLLARS!!
*Festival of the book took place last weekend. LA Writes, sponsored by the LA Writing Project state network handed out its awards for student writing. And the LSUWP had a booth where student visitors were able to make bookmarks of their favorite books. Thanks to Connie McDonald and her students for volunteering their time to man the booth.
*The Summer Institute has been planned for this year. Also, St. Charles will be holding an advanced Summer Institute. They will also be sending 5 teachers to the LSU site for the Summer Institute here in BR.
*Big Buddy in BR. Part of this organization is WORDPLAY. Anna West is the director. LSUWP has partnered with Wordplay and formed the Red Stick Writing Teachers’ Collective. This group meets weekly at Capital Grocery. There is always a presenter and we always spend time writing.
*First Thursdays! We meet one Thursday a month to discuss general LSUWP news and events and to generate community among our members. This has become a great time of community building and sharing ideas. We are hoping to start something similar in Ascension Parish soon.
*(Sara Sims) The dues for this year are due. $10. This money is used for the convocation food and a few other wonderful items.
*Wordplay’s Freshhhh Heat occurs at the YMCA on Perkins Rd. This is a dynamic place for student writers. Please come and be a part of this experience.
*Tech Matters Mini Grant. $3000!! We will be using these funds to develop a tech team and educational/classroom technology knowledge base for the site.
-Dr. Willis read from Teaching Day by Day “Selection 93.”
*This selection discussed how drastically few “good” writing teachers students can recall at the end of their educational experience. How much of an impact can 4 good writing teachers make in one school? The impact is limitless.
-Laura Theriot and our new focus.
*We have begun to re-vision and re-structure our site. Many organizations have begun this process in the post-Katrina world. St. Charles is attempting to maintain its current events and press on with opportunities for TC’s in the area.
*The Washington D.C. trips are still important as we seek to keep the Writing Projects funded. Please be an advocate for the Writing Project.
*TC’s are lacking support in Ascension Parish. We launched a plan to move into West Feliciana Parish, but they have moved in a different direction. We are now looking at Point Coupee Parish and trying to make connections there.
*Send Jared your name and email address, or those of TC’s you know who are not on the listserv, and he will add you or them.
*Please contemplate what you missed from the LSUWP this year. Give us any feedback so that we can know what TC’s are looking for. We are also looking for people who would like to move into Leadership Positions in the site. If you are interested, please let us know.
-Cynthia Edmonston and Continuity.
*Remember to come to First Thursdays. The next event is Thursday, December 14 at Monjunis. We will use this time to do writing and reflecting for ourselves.
*The St. Charles Writing Marathon will be held in the Spring.
*The Fall Showcase is being reconsidered. There has not been much of a turnout for these events statewide. We will be trying to re-think this meeting into more of a retreat format for personal writing. Think it over and let us know.
*Continuity Dream: what can we do to bring in retired TC’s to participate in the site actively? One idea might be to contact the local libraries and have retired TC’s come in and read stories for to children.

The Showcase Begins!
-Connie McDonald reads a poem from a former student.
*Connie shared the poem “Hidden” by ???. We then were asked to write for a few minutes about where our poems hide. We then went around the room an shared our writing. Always powerful stuff.
-Charity Cantey presents “Telling Personal Stories.”
*We were given prompts in a basket on our table and then asked to share a personal story from this prompt.
-Jared Wall shared his co-written lesson for “In Class Writing Marathons.”
*Four prompts were given and we wrote for 30 minutes on whatever we felt after reading one of the prompts.

Finish
-Thanks to Cynthia Edmonston for all her hard work and for making this a successful Fall Showcase.

Louisiana Book Festival!!

A big thanks to all who volunteered their time to halp out at the "Bookmark Booth" at the LA Book Festival this weekend. Also, a huge thank you to Connie McDonald for organizing our volunteers and for getting many of her own students to help with the booth.

Remember that this Saturday, November 4th, is the LSU Writing Project's Fall Showcase Sampler. If you need any information, please visit our website at www.lsuwritingproject.org.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Y'all should really check this out.

Hi y'all.

I encourage you to check out the current post by David Pulling over at Rhetorically/Poetically Yours.

For those of you who do not know David, he is the tech liaison over at the Acadiana Writing Project.  Besides that, he is a fun guy and an all around great person.  Give this blog post a read and leave him some feedback on the use of the word y'all.  He has also asked us to consider why the southern accent causes others to view us as less than intelligent.  Feel free to join in the debate.

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TECH MATTERS 2006 - RECAP

What a great time we are having at TM06. Alot has been learned and just seeing this posted with pictures and a podcast should tell you just how much has been accomplished this week.

SHOUT OUT to Jason, David, and Brett...and my new friend Luis. Luis, could you stop laughing!:)

Jared's Podcast

Hello Teacher Consultants.

We have finally finished a portion of our website. The address is www.lsuwritingproject.org. Please come by and check out what we are working on. The Teacher Consultant tab will soon have current issues of the newsletter as well a calendar of upcoming events. I am also working on a section where writing can be submitted. for now, please submit your writing for others here at the BLOG.

Thanks,

Your technology team

Some pictures from this weekends Katrina inspired mini-Writing Marathon

Hello teacher consultants. Many of us gathered on September 17 at 9am on the 4th floor of the Shaw Center in downtown New Orleans. We met to hold a mini-writing marathon and write about the impact that hurricane Katrina has had on our community and life. We had a great time visiting and catching up with people we haven't seen since Summer Institute. We missed all who were not able to attend. Laura Jones, aka Emerson, planned a wonderful event which included a folder with writing prompts and area attractions for us to visit. Dr. Willis gave us a word of the day to start off the writing. The word was "querencia." You all will remember that as being the title of our Summer Anthology--yes it will be printed shortly and delivered to you! Querencia meant a feeling or place of home. We shared some great writings and had a spirited conversation on Katrina and the aftershocks of this historic catastrophe. After this, we split up and did some writing from the prompts that Laura had given us. We met together at noon at Poor Boy Lloyds for lunch. We had a great dinner and Shana met her next husband who was waiting on our table (Kidding)! A good time was had by all.

Latest News and Events

Just to update this blog and share some news with those of you who check in, the writing group Angeles de Ernesto met this Saturday for our first gathering and sharing since summer institute. You can read about it by clicking the link over in the links section titled "Jared's Angels Writing Group." I also wanted to give a friendly reminder that surveys will be coming to you soon. Please complete them and return them to me as soon as possible. I hope everyone has a great start to the school year. If one of you would be so kind as to be the first to post some writing here, I will be forever in your debt.

Welcome: LSU Writing Project Teacher Consultants!

This is a new site or "blog" dedicated to the writing of Teacher Consultants from the Louisiana State University Writing Project. We will be inviting the current group of 2005 Summer Institute Participants who have just graduated to Teacher Consultant status to post their writings here. We would like to include all Teacher Consultants from LSUWP as well. If you are a Teacher Consultant and would like to be a contributor to this blog, please email me at jwall3@lsu.edu and I will send you the necessary information to make it happen.

We look forward to any and all writings done by Teacher Consultants. Once posted, there will be links for posting responses to the writing. Please be respectful and constructive at all times.