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Event Stories
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 Pictures by Joe Bellacero Most especially appreciated were the friends who accompanied Writing Project folk. Lorraine McFarlane, from the New School of Arts and Sciences, brought nine year old Kayla who wrote wonderful pieces about all she saw. Cecilia Espinoza from Lehman College brought her friend Sara all the way from Arizona to join us for the second time. Noah Coston from Wagner H.S. brought his writer friend, Grace, and Annie Thoms from Stuyvesant brought her colleague, Holly. It was also great to have Linette Moorman, former director of the NYCWP, take some time out from her globe-trotting work for the National Writing Project, to join us. Other participants were Dara Winkler, Chris Bellacero, Lona Vilmar-Jack and Ed Osterman. Ed noted that the setting "…had quite an impact on our writing. Unlike the huge range of topics I have heard at other marathons, our writing was strongly focused and affected by what we saw, the issues it raised for us and the emotional connections many of us felt." The entire experience was summed up succinctly by Dara Winkler of Wagner Secondary School, "It was wonderful." |
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 Just when you think you know the power of writing and what to expect from an event involving Writing Project teachers and students, you are surprised once again. This is what happened on Saturday, May 17, 2008 when a group of NYCWP teacher-consultants and teachers gathered to listen to their students read at the Nuyorican Poets Café on the lower East Side. The power of the students’ voices and their ability to evoke feeling with their words came across in the song, poetry and editorials they shared with the audience of friends, family and teachers.
The NYCWP has held a series of Celebratory Readings in the past but due to the changes in our school placements and the demands on our attention this created, we hadn’t been able to organize one for a few years. Last Saturday renewed our sense of just how important this event can be. Under the leadership of Alison Koffler-Wise, Julie Miele and Gina Moss planned and organized this event. We were fortunate to have a former student of Alison’s serve as MC. An experienced Slam Poet and MC, Christopher “Cannon” Mapp, introduced each school and reader. And, later he shared a personal poem of his own, a tribute to his mother. We heard many poems about disappointment, anger, love, hope and hurt – some personal, others political. We also heard students’ views on the impersonalization of humanity by Internet use and a plea for our government to treat the troops with respect. We also listened to originally composed music and lyrics celebrating family and a grandmother’s love. With strong, clear voices these students made their thoughts and positions known. An added feature to this year’s event was the contribution of music performed by music teacher, Fred Vásquez, and a group of his students. Their classical guitar selections greeted the audience at the start of the program and provided a calming interlude in the middle of the program.
The readers were students from John Bowne High School, Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence, EBC High School for Public Service, Long Island City High School, Newtown High School, Newcomers High School, Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts and Sciences and Robert F. Wagner Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology. And, the musicians came from Newtown High School.
A special thank you is due to all the readers and especially to the committee - Alison, Gina and Julie -who made this event possible. In addition, Alison Koffler-Wise, Susannah Thompson, Gina Moss, Diane Giorgi, Joe Bellacero and Julie Miele worked with teachers at their schools to identify and prepare students who performed at this event.
In recognition of the teachers and readers, their names are listed here:
Newcomers High School - Mary Burke, Principal; Diane Giorgi, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant:
Teacher: Nina Kramer- Irum Malik and Francesca Belhomme, readers
Teacher: Blanca Izaguirre –Rafael Rodriguez, reader
Newtown High School - John Ficalora, Principal; Diane Giorgi, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teachers: Zaida Aguirre and Gabriela Altomarino, AP Foreign Language - Brayan Bayona, Reader
Teacher: Kmberlee Bent - Roushanara Ali Stefany Castrillon, and Nancy Rizal R eaders
Music Teacher: Fred Vásquez – Htat Htut, Jeff Hinz, Louis Padilla and Nancy Rizal
Long Island City High School – William Bassell, Principal; Gina Moss, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teacher: Lina Katz; Isma Shahid and Ariadne Reza, Readers
Teacher: Sabrina Alano; Justin Kennedy, Reader
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Secondary School of Arts and Technology – Bruce Noble, Principal; Joe Bellacero, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teacher: Liz Madans; Juliene Fernandez, Karen LaRose and John Fonseca, Readers
Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence – Cathy Reilly, Principal; Susannah Thompson, NYCWP Teacher Consultant
Teacher: Megan Cahill; Jose Espinal, Katherine Rincon, and Kayla Rodriguez
EBC High School for Public Service – Victor Capellan, Principal; Susannah Thompson, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teacher: Darnese Olivieri; Jose Morales, Reader
Teacher: Lisa Bensing; Marco Salazar
Teacher: Emily Spitznagel; Iquell Reina, Reader
John Bowne High School – Howard Kwait, Principal; Alison Koffler-Wise, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teachers: Sophia Fadi and Ed Drangel; Michael Vincent, Harold Paz and Mariah Lewis, Readers
Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts and Sciences – Nigel Pugh, Principal; Julie Miele, NYCWP Teacher-Consultant
Teacher: Lori Mayo; Joanna Mayo, John Zurz and Ashley Alongi, Readers
A big thank you is owed to the Nuryorican Poets Café’s event coordinator, Lois Griffith and House Manger, Julio Dalmau for making this perfect venue available for our use. Thanks also to Dayl Wise and Joe Bellacero for the accompanying photographs. |
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 Teachers Teaching Teachers! Click the photo to see a slideshow!
On a breezy spring Saturday in May, a group of 28 teachers from across the city gathered at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education (BSGE) for a second day of technology and writing. The teachers had met the previous evening to create avatars and to be introduced to the Web 2.0 social networking tools being used to support literacy instruction by some New York City Writing Project teachers.
This gathering of teachers was a result of an announcement of a two day technology retreat sponsored by the NYCWP. We offered teachers from the schools in which we are consulting, our members and other NYCWP teachers the opportunity to learn about some of the newest web-based programs used for composing, communicating and publishing. Our facilitators, Paul Allison, Madeline Brownstone, Nancy Cavillones and Ken Stein, planned sessions on creating and commenting on VoiceThreads and using Trailfire. Added to the value of the information was the experience of working with students on technology. Participants were assisted by students from BSGE’s MOUSE Squad in the use of the Macs. There was an overwhelmingly positive response from all who attended.
The attendance at this event was the largest turnout ever for a technology program offered by the NYCWP. We are encouraged by this growing interest in exploring technology as a new literacy and to support the development of traditional literacies. We will be building on the learning at the retreat with a three-week summer institute in which participants will be encouraged to further explore the tools introduced during the retreat in creating VoiceThreads, blogs, twitter, tumblr and podcasts, among other tools to compose and create content.
Check back for updates on our technology offerings.
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