Prairie Lands alums score Scholastic Contest entries: Thirty-eight writing project alums, pre-service teachers, and area educators spent two Saturdays at Missouri Western in January scoring over 3500 writing contest entries submitted by teenage writers, grades seven-twelve, from throughout the country. This was the fifth year that PLWP has served as a preliminary adjudication site for Scholastic’s Writing Awards contest. Prairie Lands alums who scored included: Jane Frick (2000-2007 Institutes), PLWP site director and MWSU English professor; Ann Dotson (2006 and 2007 Institutes), St. Joseph Skaith elementary teacher; Jennifer Vermillion (2007 Institute), Lathrop R-II high school French/Spanish teacher; Mike Epperson (2004 Institute), Lathrop R-II high school English teacher; Stefanie Lyle (2004 Institute), St. Joseph Benton high school language arts chair/teacher; Charlotte Grider(2005 Institute), freelance writer; Greg Gildersleeve (2006 Institute), Johnson County Community College English instructor; Tim Morrison(2006 Institute), Winston R-IV art teacher; Steve Frogge (2005 Institute); Missouri Western English instructor; Tom Pankiewicz (1987-2007 Institutes), PLWP Institutes director and Missouri Western English instructor; Mary Lee Meyer (2002 Institute), PLWP Technology Liaison;Shannon Harris (2007 Institute), St. Joseph Skaith elementary teacher; and Carma Burtnett (2001 Institute), St. Joseph Bode middle school math teacher. Check out the photos from our January 17 and 26 sessions in our PLWP Photo Album.
PLWP TCs at invited NWP sessions: Tori Grable (1991 Institute), St. Joseph secondary language arts coordinator and Benton high school teacher, and Kathy Miller (2001 Institute), West Platte R-II high school A+ coordinator and MWSU adjunct English instructor, participated in a training and scoring session using National Writing Project’s analytical scoring rubric at a regional NWP conference held in St. Louis in January.Valorie Stokes (1994 Institute), PLWP Web editor and Platte County high school media coordinator, participated in a NWP working retreat in Atlanta in January to develop/publish technology teaching tools for NWP’s Technology Initiative.
Stacia Studer (2007 Institute), St. Joseph Bode middle school communication arts chair and language arts teacher, had a baby boy, Satchel Robert Henry Studer, on January 21. Stacia will present her Middle School Literacy Academy classroom inquiry project in a poster session at this year’s Write to Learn Conference on February 15.
Looking for successful strategies for students to develop language skills and fluency without using deadly grammar skill/drill exercises? Check out the Parallel Structure Lesson Teaching Notes and Complex Sentence Lesson Plans which Sherry McGhay (2002 Institute), West Platte R-II high school Spanish/ACT prep teacher; and Jill Steinmetz (2007 Institute), Savannah middle school language arts teacher, have allowed us to publish on our PLWP WIKI. Sherry and Jill successfully implemented the lessons in their own classes last fall as a part of their participation in ENG 567 Grammar and the Teaching of Writing, a Missouri Western graduate course that counts as an elective in PLWP’s Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of Writing.