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The eighth graders at Benson Village School perofrmed their ballad on Wednesday before a packed gym. Below is an earlier slideshow of the ballad with Pete Sutherland on voice. This was the second of our YWP Ballad Writing Residency which was underwritten by the Lake Champlain Basin Program.
The Benson performance made the Front Page of the Rutland Herald on Thursday, click here for the link.
And later on Thursday, Pete performed parts of both ballads on Vermont Public Radio's Vermont Edition. Podcast above.
Young Writers Project formally entered the 21st Century on Tuesday, May 12, when we held our first Poetry Slam at the Champlain Mill and streamed it live on youngwritersproject.org. Click here to see the recorded version (and the chat) though it is in lower quality resolution than the real deal (we're working on finding a high-resolution storage area on the Web for these).
Running the slam was Geof Hewitt, poetry slam artist and a curriculum/writing coordinator for Vermont DOE. He said at the end of the session to the gathering and later reiterated it to me privately that the quality of the poetry was higher than any slam he has ever given -- adult or otherwise. "Your biggest problem is that for those out there watching, this may have been intimidating."
Over the next few days we are going to be taking the audio recording of the slams and posting them with whatever text the slammers actually post. Some of it was spontaneous (young minds at work!) but we'll do our best.
Pete Sutherland and his gang of 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Swanton School presented the results of their 4-week Ballad Writing residency at the Tabor House on May 4. Many parents, kids, grandparents, community members wedged into the main room at the resort which was opened up for the occasion. Here is a slideshow and recording of the performance; the art work was done by each of the students using glass prints. Thanks to our sponsors, the Lake Champlain Basin Program Thanks to Swanton School Principal Julie Benay for spearheading this project. The song has been performed and will be performed by Pete Sutherland in many public venues this spring, summer and fall. The next show: May 16 at Burlington's Waterfront as part of the Young Traditions weekend. Click headline to read the words as you listen.
Benson Village School, meanwhile, soon will complete its ballad as part of this project and will be presenting their ballad at school on May 27.
It is Monday, the start of a new week, the day when students at Essex High School returned from vacation, the first day back since a freshman, Aaron Xue, committed suicide behind the school.
Aaron Xue was 15 years old and by all accounts smart, talented and athletic. He was an honors student. He was one of the best tennis players in the state and was nationally ranked. He was a cellist. And, from the remembrances of his family, his friends, his teachers and even those who knew him only slightly, he was a gentle, compassionate soul. He died late Friday, April 17.
Young Writers Project learned of Aaron's death from a friend of his who posted something Sunday afternoon. We contacted EHS and received advice and counsel from the guidance director -- Michelle Rath -- as to how best to handle the situation. We posted a note asking that the students write about Aaron's life and about their own feelings rather than conjecture about his death.
We are starting up an exciting new program: The YWP Digital Writing Center at Champlain Mill (our new home). This space will serve small groups of students -- particularly "at risk" immigrant and low-income students in the surrounding area -- as well as college mentors, teachers and the community. This center will allow us to hold many small workshops, training and events that promote writing, expression and creative use of multimedia.
Our aim is to have a place that becomes an active, vibrant meeting place in which we bring in experts in all sorts of things -- digital storytelling, photography, videography, journalism, social action, visual art, visual design and, of course, wrting. Writing, writing, writing. We'd like to connect experienced young writers with peers who are less experienced or who recently moved here from foreign lands. We'd like to connect our online college mentors with students face-to-face and also help them hone their critical skills. We'd like to connect young writers with elders in the community. We'd like to bring in storytellers to give young writers some ideas.
For the first phase of this project -- to get it off the ground -- we have set a modest goal of $12,000 for computers, furniture and a bit of remodeling and to cover some of the professional fees for planned workshops so that we can offer scholarships to those students of need. We strongly believe that our services aimed at helping student improve their writing skills should be available to all.
If you would like to donate, if you want to know more about our program, or if you would consider giving us a large sponsorship, please contact us at this address:
Geoffrey Gevalt Young Writers Project Champlain Mill 20 Winooski Falls Way, Suite #4 Winooski, VT 05404 802-310-0642 ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org
We promise you that students, mentors, teachers and friends will not be disappointed with what we can offer and what kids produce because of your generosity. And stay tuned as details of our work get posted here. (Nice passive sentence, I agree.) Thanks so much. Geoff
This is a final draft of a Soundslides presentation I made up last night on the topic of student voice and creating authentic audience for kid's work. We are appreciative that Soundslides has donated 10 licenses for the project, and I thought it a good opportunity to learn the software. This is the leading edge software for digital storytelling and we plan to use this in some summer workshops we are doing. Thought you'd like to see it. PLEASE comment below so I can revise it before I present it to teachers in public.
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A few random items of interest over the last few days at Young Writers Project, Inc.
First, feast your eyes on this recent submission by a student on youngwritersproject.org. This was done through vuvox.com which is an amazing site that allows users to create collages and multi-media visual stories. Great fun. Student's name is Bridget Iverson; she's at Mount Mansfield Union High School. Since this column is a bit narrow, this is best seen by clicking on the box next to the "SHARE" in the bottom right to view it on full screen.
Friday was a good day for YWP. Bullet highlights (more later):
FairPoint Communications announced a major grant to support Online Writing Centers at four schools, to help fund an efficacy study by a local college or university and to fund special publication of student work. Thanks to them.
In this month's Hinesburg Record is a wonderful story by several kids at the Hinesburg Community School about their experience with the online writing classroom we built for them. We have one team and about 55 kids testing it out and plan to expand it to much of the school next year.
The article was written by Autumn Eastman and Mackenzie Tobrocke -- two seventh graders. Let me unashamedly quote some of their writing:
"The opportunity which the Young Writers Project has provided to HCS students has changed the way we use our writing skills and abilities. ... The website allows students and teachers to free write and express their opinions. ... Students on the Infinity Team are also allowed to comment and give each other what's called "1+1" comments -- you give the author one piece of postiive feedback and then give them one thing they could improve on."
We had so much fun with the first Vermont Writes Day, we decided to do a second and a third. We held the second one on March 17. (Go to vermontwrites.ywpvt.net to see a sampling of student work from the day.) The third is planned for May 5 and will focus on farming and will include this prompt:
After two and a half years under the generous, supportive wing of the Vermont Business Roundtable, YWP has moved to new digs at the Champlain Mill in Winooski. This is very exciting for us -- to have space and to consider the possibilities of what we could do with workshops, events and training were we able to raise some money and volunteers.
The first day was interesting -- with not enough chairs and email that wasn't working quite right -- but we got a fair amount done despite the change. We, by the way, is now me, Eva DeVries and Lee McIsaac.
To see more of the before and after shots of our space -- the former Winooski Teen Center -- check out these galleries!
The other night, after five hours of painting at our new offices at Champlain Mill, I headed to my car and saw a young man waiting for a bus. It was cold and, given the hour, I figured it would be a while before the bus arrived. John Canning, our board chair was with me, we said our goodbyes and then I walked over to the young man.
"Where you headed?"
"Downtown, Burlington."
"Want a ride?"
Turns out the young man was returning from his job at a Thai restaurant and was a senior at Champlain College in its Professional Writing Program. Turns out he's quite a poet -- was named the college's student poet and edits the school's wonderful anthology "Willard and Maple." I've asked him to mentor and he's interested in interning.... All from an offer of a ride. Here, by the way, is part of a note he sent me:
We just received a wonderful note from Amie Desautels who is using our Online Writing Classroom at Lamoille Union Middle School. Amie signed up for our Digital Learning class that is being accredited through St. Michael's College. This is a practicum -- We build a site for the teachers, provide basic training and then have the teachers, during the year, make use of the site with blogging, commenting, podcasting and digital storytelling. We provide support online, through email and through occasional visits to the classroom.
Amie's experience was so exciting to her colleagues at the school, we've brought them into the site as well and they are now all getting up to speed.
Amie sent us a letter of feedback. Here's a small excerpt of what she said:
I never have liked Monday mornings that much. I'm not alone, I know. I guess by most Sundays I am realizing that there is another side of me than work and am starting to "chill out" as my kids say (though they might dispute that.) Monday mornings I'm usually foggy -- I've caught up on sleep -- and a bit stressed as I think about all the things I need to get done in the week ahead.
So, it's really really really nice when we get an email like this from a user of our main student site, youngwritersproject.org:
"Hi Mr. Gevalt!
"I don't know if this is going to be considered wierd and stalker-like, but I wanted to tell you something. My name is (name removed because she didn't know I was going publish this) and I'm sunshinedaisy on youngwritersproject.org.
In the spring of 2007, concerned that the volume of submissions to our Newspaper Series was so large that we were disappointing far more students than we were encouraging, we teamed up with University of Vermont Writing Center Director Sue Dinitz to see if we could get some of her top, trained tutors to provide feedback to the young writers. She jumped at the chance and each semester we've had at least a handful of student mentors from UVM providing feedback. We've also had students from St. Michael's College and Middlebury.
This fall, we involved students from Castleton College. They've been great. Castleton, interestingly, is one of the few colleges in the nation that requires all students to pass a rigorous writing test in order to graduate. Last semester and this we have about 40 to 45 students participating. Andrew Alexander, a professor at Castleton, is leading the group this spring and sees the program expanding to many more students at Castleton.
We were up at Lamoille Middle School this week where one teacher, Amie Desautels, has gotten several colleagues to joint the site we built for her class. One of the teachers, Nicole Burke, got her kids onto the site right away.
She said that one of her students has terrible penmanship and had always struggled with writing. The first day the student was on the site, she wrote and wrote and wrote. "She told me she'd never written so much," Burke said.
In 2007 we began to build Web sites for after-school groups and teachers. The aim was to get students to write to each other, to expand beyond an audience of one -- the teacher. Many studies show that this type of peer-to-peer learning is very powerful.
And indeed that has proven the case. We have 18 sites up and running right now and have done another five pilots. We survey the kids at the beginning and end of the year to gauge changes in their attitudes about writing and themselves. We also have discovered from these surveys that a side benefit is that the students gain a deeper appreciation of each other because of these online classrooms.
We also ask teachers to suggest improvements and give feedback. Our argument is that not only is this helpful to us but it can also help in discussion at the school about whether to go more deeply into digital learning or to buy more computers.
Here's a piece of feedback we received today from a 7/8 grade teacher using one of our online classrooms:
In August 2006, I left my job as managing editor of The Burlington Free Press to embark full-time on this crazy notion that someone from the outside world could engage a few kids to write.
The first thing I did (after, of course, the required one day off) was to start building a Web site. It took me two weeks. But it worked. And, starting with one member of youngwritersproject.org -- me -- we've now grown to 3,560 members -- mostly students -- and we've chunked about 1,000 students along the way who've graduated....
What I have discovered about this site that is most amazing is how much the students talk about the site being addictive and monstrously time consuming. Now I know they speak the truth because I look at my Google Stats from time to time and see -- Average daily visits; 450 to 800; average pages visited: 10+; average time of visit: 11 minutes. Now if you know anything about Web site metrics that's pretty darn good. And if you take out the 32 percent who bop onto the site and leave immediately (now that's attention deficit!) the actual average is much much higher (hasn't Google heard of mean?)
The Burlington Free Press did a Q&A with one of the winners of our Future of Vermont essay contest. FP reporter Lynn Monty spoke with Jessica Austin of Westford. Here's a link to the story. And to read her essay, click here.
Among her comments:
Was the essay you wrote a required assignment?
No, it was not required. I go on the Young Writer Project Web site twice a day, and I saw the prompt, so I wrote the essay.
Why?
I really love to write a lot. It’s my form of expression. I’m kind of a quiet person, and it’s the one way I can express myself without feeling self-conscious.
What would you say to other kids who want to enter writing contests?
Find your best work and improve it and submit it. Don’t let rejection get you down. Just keep on going and write something new. ...
Here are the other winners of the Future of Vermont Essay Challenge (we received about 350 entries):
As a journalist, I was always trained to assume nothing, to continually reassess; to figure out how to get over, around, under hurdles and obstacles and to get it done -- there's a paper to get out.
This puts me in good stead to run a nonprofit in this economic climate.
So we are experiencing donors who have less to give, foundations who have more applicants for less money and corporate sponsors who are getting hit from all sides.
Today we had a meeting with one company that is deeply interested in partnering with us. It has already made some commitments and is now assessing at what level they will support us in the coming fall. We've been talking since June and we have determined our goals are the same -- to help community; our missions are similar -- using digital technology to improve learning; and we like each other.
Today we travelled to Childen's Literacy Foundation, a small nonprofit in Waterbury Center, Vt., that brings books to rural communities as well as immigrant families, children of prisoners, families in shelters and others down on their luck and situation. CLIF also sponsors writer and illustrator workshops in schools. Some of the presenters, poet Leland Kinsey for one, are amazing.
Our plan to partner is this: We will help publish the best work from the workshops. We also will probably build a Web site for use by a CLIF workshop this spring. Last year, one of our partner schools -- Marcotte Central School -- were preparing for a visit by a wonderful author, Helen Frost. The teacher had students write in Frost's style and to emulate one of Frost's specialties: Shape poems. Then the teacher, in anticipation of Frost's visit, invited her onto the site to view the students' work and comment.
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Someone asked about this the other day, so here's the info on this wonderful partnership. To listen to the piece, click the link above or click here to go to youngwritersproject.org.
The Young Writers Project collaborated with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Vermont Midi Project to have a young composer -- Joshua Morris, a 15-year-old from St. Albans -- create six, one-minute compositions for six selections from our bevy (2,000!) of six-word short stories that were created last spring.
Here is what the collaboration -- 6 Pieces in 6 Words in 6 Minutes -- sounds like. This was recorded at rehearsal the night before the two concerts at the Flynn Center in Burlington. There were about 2,000 people at the two concerts.
Unfortunately three of the young writers could not make it so I filled in. (I hope I did them justice!) Introducing the segment is David Ludwig, the incredible composer in residence at the VSO. Listen to what can come from six words!
(WARNING: David and I have already cooked up a plan for the coming year that will involve connecting writers with composers!)
The stories... Before the light hit the earth. -- Bailey Walker, North Country Union High School
People finally stopped reading the newspapers. -- Camille Sage Bower, Mt. Mansfield Union High School.
The aliens transported the cow away. -- Emily Patch, Rutland High School
Her ghost restlessly haunts the castle. -- Amie Schiller, Brattleboro Union High School.
I knew I should have walked. -- Chris Smith, graduate, Spaulding High School.
No sir, it's a bird shop. -- Misha Kydd, Mt. Mansfield Union High School.
For more about the YWP six-word story project, click here. A 30-second spot appeared Friday Dec. 5 on WCAX and Joshua said "I really never dreamed I'd be getting to do something like this. I started composing about three years ago, so yeah, it's really a wonderful experience." David Ludwig: "To give them the opportunity to write for a professional orchestra like the Vermont Symphony is something we really think is an investment in the future of music."
On January 27, we held our first Vermont Writes Day a non-legislative designation for a day that is not particularly noteworthy other than being the birthday of Lewis Carroll. (For more about our Vermont Writes Day II, go to the story on this blog or to vermontwrites.ywpvt.net)
What we wanted to do was to see if we could get schools, teachers, students and staff to stop what they were doing and write -- for just seven minutes. We offered three suggested prompts: "Dear President Obama..." or "I am really good at ..." or "Listen..." (For more about Vermont Writes Day I, click here.)
Check out this link: http://youngwritersproject.org/node/24553 and listen to (and read) what a Vermont high school student created barely two hours after President Obama's inauguration speech. "Speech plus Usagi" in the podcasts section.
This is a remarkable use of technology but also shows remarkable insight and critical thinking. Imagine if we equipped all our schools with decent recording devices. (Imagine, too, if our schools had planned to have their students watch this bit of history instead of taking mid-terms. -- gg
Champlain Mill -- Our New Home : Winooski River floods Mill in 1927. YWP offices are about 8 windows down in the submerged portion. New address: YWP, Champlain Mill, 20 Winooski Falls Way, Suite #4, Winooski, VT, 05404.
Well here I go... A brief history of the Young Writers Project, call it the elevator pitch:
Thirty-two year career in journalism; had fun, did some good but was getting tired of cut, cut cut.
Created a weekly feature to publish best work by students and to promote best practices for teaching writing. In three years it had ballooned -- about 850 submissions in 2005/06, and I was doing it all at home -- making pages, doing a Dreamweaver web site and so and so....
In early January 2006 I decided to kill the project at the end of the school year. A week later...
I'm Geoffrey Gevalt, founder and director of the Young Writers Project, a Vermont nonprofit that is building a generation of better writers. In this blog I'll highlight cool things students are doing, talk about activities at YWP and show some of the impact this project is having.. I'll also talk about the things we learn about writing, schools and digital learning. Please comment; otherwise I will think that no one is reading. Thanks.- gg
Connect
To subscribe to an RSS feed of this blog, go to:http://ywpblog.ywpvt.net/rss.xml or paste that url in your RSS feed aggregator or Web site. -- gg
Friday was a good day for YWP. Bullet highlights (more later):
After two and a half years under the generous, supportive wing of the Vermont Business Roundtable, YWP has moved to new digs at the Champlain Mill in Winooski. This is very exciting for us -- to have space and to consider the possibilities of what we could do with workshops, events and training were we able to raise some money and volunteers.
The first day was interesting -- with not enough chairs and email that wasn't working quite right -- but we got a fair amount done despite the change. We, by the way, is now me, Eva DeVries and Lee McIsaac.
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