In the last few months of silence on this blog, I have been keeping up with Bastropisdwriters.wordpress.com, our LRNG grant blog, and supporting Bastrop ISD teachers in their implementation of writing workshop. On the Bastropisdwriters blog, you can read and view more about how teachers have connected their students’ writing with community partners.
In schools, I have guided teachers to design original Writing Workshop units of study that are responsive to their diverse students and local community. Teachers have connected their students with authentic audiences in their schools, local communities, and digitally.
At home, as my Maya prepares to enter kindergarten at our neighborhood school, I am getting involved locally again. I have started a group called Nuestras Escuelas, Nuestros Poderes (Our Schools, Our Strengths) which brings parents and teachers from all of the schools that feed into my neighborhood high school together to:
- Brainstorm ways we can broadcast and share the strengths of our neighborhood schools and
- Connect students, teachers, and communities across school campuses
And so, it is both to honor the current work of Bastrop ISD teachers and to, hopefully, inspire future work in my neighborhood schools, that I share these links to teacher-created and student-centered units of study that have brought diverse student’s voices, interests, and passions out into the community and communities into their local schools.
I hope to see more and more of this teaching going on in my neighborhood schools. When teachers are given the professional development and the autonomy to create units that are catered to their local students and communities and share student work broadly, we can, collectively, resist the false narrative of our nation’s failing public schools and come together in solidarity to rally behind them.
Take a look and let us know what you think!
Authors Write Stories About Our Lives
Authors Write Imaginative Stories
Authors Write Varieties of Fiction
Katie McKay 