Overview
Project Outreach is a concerted effort to better support teachers of underserved student populations and to increase the diversity of the Oakland Writing Project’s leadership. Sylvia Bailey, the OWP’s site coordinator for Project Outreach, declares that “the Writing Project would make a difference in the lives of many more teachers and their students if they had the opportunity to participate.” Project Outreach programs in the OWP are made possible by the National Writing Project, which provides the funding and goals, as well as a network of sites across the country that are involved in the same work.
Planning in Progress
As we have worked to make the Oakland Writing Project more inclusive, we have designed and continued to initiate programs that are relevant to wider audiences. Three of those are outlined here:
- Underground Railroad Project
This summer, for the first time, Dick Koch, Bessie Burden, and Kathy King will offer a workshop entitled Sojourner Truth: The Story of the Underground Railroad at Pontiac Central High School. Participants will use music, dance and storytelling in an enactment designed to deepen their understanding of the underground railroad. The facilitators are bringing this workshop to the teachers of Pontiac Central High as part of an effort to better serve their constituents. - English Language Learners
In collaboration with the Centre for Social Action, the OWP has launched a project designed to better serve English Language Learners in the area, the Latino Writing Club. The club welcomes Spanish-speaking students who wish to boost their writing ability and self-esteem. The objective is to help students make a smooth transition from speaking Spanish exclusively to becoming bilingual. “Students are blossoming” in the club’s supportive environment declares Richard Koch, who co-designs and co-teaches along with Jean Petterson and Janet Flores.This year’s club included groups of 4th and 5th graders from McKinley Elementary in Adrian. During ten weeks of meetings from November 2001 to March 2002, students’ writing was supported by mini-lessons on craft and by opportunities to address real audiences. On a field trip to Adrian College students met with the college president for an hour and enjoyed a chance read to a gathering of college students and faculty. The trip was designed to give students an authentic audience for their work and to help pique their interest in attending college.
Next year the club leaders plan to add middle school students and to increase teacher involvement in order to increase the site’s capacity. When they are encouraged to write about things they care about and provided with real audiences for their work, Koch says, students in the Latino Writing Club are empowered to celebrate who they are.
- Summer Literacy Camp
Students in grades 5-8 will be invited to attend a residential camp on a college campus. The camp has a three-part focus on writing, math, and family, with the goal of inspiring students and their parents to be excited about math literacy and to see the connections between writing and math.
Who We Are
To best realize the goals of Project Outreach, individual sites have formed Local Leadership Teams. The Local Leadership Team of the Oakland Writing Project is made up of the group of experienced educators who have dedicated themselves to promoting inclusion and diversity at the site. The local team has benefited from meeting with other teams at national conferences to share resources and support one another.
OWP’s Local Team
Sylvia Bailey, Site Coordinator
I am a Marketing Education teacher at Southfield High School. I have been teaching only eight years. Prior to that I worked at Ross Roy advertising in Marketing Research and Strategic Planning. My first career which lasted 10 years was in retailing where I was a sportswear buyer. I received a Masters of Arts in Teaching in 1994 from Wayne State, an MBA in Marketing in 1988 also from Wayne State and a BS in Retailing in 1970 from The Ohio State University.
Patricia Bellinger-Chun
As an educator and social worker for the past 20 years, I have tried to influence the teaching strategies of teachers to create more conducive environments that develops learning communities for students and their families. I have been involved in many initiatives in the Southfield School District during the past seven years that were directed specifically towards raising the consciousness of teachers working with at risk students and their families. Five years ago, I had the opportunity to work on the district’s professional development team for restructuring the two main high schools and influencing the teaching styles of the alternative high school.
Bessie Burden
I am a Sixth Grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher at Birney Middle School in Southfield, MI. I have been teaching sixth grade for the past four years. Prior to this I taught third grade for two years and first grade for two years. Caring about the future and having a passion for kids is why I teach. I work hard to bring trust and excitement to my classroom and this is what I plan to bring to Project Outreach.
Linda Harrington
Kathy King
I am an energetic Language Arts teacher who loves working with middle school students. I have taught middle school for the last 17 years and continue to learn something new from my students each year. I have three children. Two attend Michigan State University and my youngest is in high school. I love to skate, read, bake, write, and work out.
Richard Koch
I teach writing and the teaching of writing at Adrian College, MI. I have been involved in the Writing Project movement for about twenty years. I have collaborated with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and attended the NEH Summer Institute on the Civil Rights Movement at Harvard in 1999.
Laura Schiller
Ten years ago, as a middle school teacher, I fell in love with writing during an OWP summer institute and have been on a steep learning curve ever since. Currently, I am a director of the Oakland Writing Project, Literacy Consultant for Oakland Intermediate School District, and a Ph.D. student in Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Michigan.
Ayanna Yearby
Project Outreach Goals
The Project Outreach network has three goals:
- To increase the number of teachers of low-income youth participating in sustained development at Writing Project sites;
- To increase the quality of services provided by Writing Project sites by improving the professional development they offer and by making it more relevant to teachers in low-income communities; and
- To increase the quality of programs conducted by Writing Project sites by increasing the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in project leadership so that teacher knowledge can more closely reflect the linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the local community.