The Morehead Writing Project Professional Learning Community completed a successful first year. Site Director Deanna Mascle facilitated the group which included site leaders Tim Reding and Jared Salyers as well as MSU faculty/staff members Lee Bessette, Bruce Engle, Jody Fernandez, Mark Graves, and Alvin Madden-Grider.
Learning communities are important to the work of the Morehead Writing Project and we wanted to bring the power and the magic of the National Writing Project network to our host institution and make it accessible to the faculty and staff of Morehead State University. The focus of our work as a Professional Learning Community was simple in goal and yet incredibly complex – how can we improve writing instruction and the development of writers at Morehead State University.
Our PLC members include faculty working with the entire spectrum of MSU students from graduate students and pre-service teachers to developmental students and other first-year writers. We also include MWP site leaders with experience working with our K-12 teachers and staff representing the important support services essential to student success.
Our discussion topics for this foundational year were wide ranging and included the joys, pitfalls, and challenges of teaching writing; our goals for our students; college readiness and retention; and our hopes and dreams for writing instruction (and support services) for MSU students. In true NWP-fashion, we shared stories of our own classroom experiences to illustrate our pedagogical failures, successes, and lessons learned as well as current research and its implications for our work.
As a result, we found our PLC meetings offered opportunity for personal and professional growth and development as well as to learn more about the National Writing Project and its methods and resources. However, we have also begun to develop ideas for ways that MSU curriculum and support services can foster more confident and more competent writers in college and beyond. In addition, we are also working on ideas to offer better support for all faculty and staff responsible for supporting the development of those writers. We plan to continue this work and developing these plans in the next academic year. Any changes in curriculum and support services will require careful planning as well as working with many stakeholders which means we can do no more than make recommendations, however we are planning events for the 2013-14 academic year (in conjunction with MWP) which will both celebrate the innovative teaching and programs already in existence at MSU and hopefully foster faculty/staff collaboration to further improve the teaching of writing.