Prairielands

I see a whole year has come and gone since I last posted to this blog.  PLWP Summer Institute 2008 had a lively group of teachers who as always found they never had enough time to write.  Discussions about writing and teaching of writing take up a lot of time.

June 2008 saw the largest group of TCs from all over the state of MO attending the annual PLWP writing retreat.  Rebecca closed the registration at 25 participants.  Britton Gildersleeve of the OK. writing project acted as the guest editor.  This retreat is held just 1.5 miles from where I live.  It is held at the Conception Abbey Monastery in rural NW Missouri.  I get to be the meet-and-greet person each year.  This year I conducted two tours of the newest sites in rural MO–24 electricity generating giant windmills dot the landscape.  We have two on our property so I could get people up close and personal with the windmills.  Rebecca wrote a little about the windmills during the retreat. See http://plwp.wetpaint.com/page/PLWP+2008+Writing+Retreat  .

July 31 and Aug. 1 saw 8 PLWP TCs attending the Missouri State Writing Project Network in Columbia, MO.  It was a rewarding two day retreat complete with a writing marathon and open mic.  My writing marathon group chose two art galleries, an ice cream shop called Sparkys and a tatoo parlor as our writing marathon stops. 

Some of the activities ahead for PLWP are the Fall Finish, Oct 4th with Kevin Hodgson as the keynote speaker.  I am looking forward to visiting with Kevin.  The Fall Finish is the final meeting for the SI and also provides workshop sessions as professional development opportunities for area teachers.  October 14th is the annual When Writing Teachers Write meeting.  It is an evening opportunity for teachers to read some of their writing and discuss writing and teaching of writing with like minded teachers.  Following October is the November NWP meeting.  I am looking forward to seeing many friends I have made in the area of writing.  Mary

I wanted to say that the blogs I posted were only bits and pieces of the work we did at Nebraska City May 18 and 19th.  We all came away with a sense of direction.  There are still more questions, but we do have a focus and some direction.   Also I have opened this blog to some of my fellow participants of the revisioning retreat.  Some of them wanted to try blogging and I thought this might be a place to start.  I have a picture, but I am going to have to edit it because it is a bigger file.  Mary

These are pictures I took at the Seed Site mtg. at Kennesaw.

The photos outside are of the final writing reflecting on the day.

Mary

Prairie Lands Writing Project(PLWP) held their Celebrating Rural Poetry celebration August 23.  Ten high school writers and four mentors read their poetry at a celebration in the St. Joseph public library.  PLWP was selected to participate in the Rural Poetry activity promoted by Ted Kooser.  Rebecca D., PLWP TC and PLWP retreat director,  was the director of this activity. One grandmother drove from a neighboring state just to hear her grandson read his poem.

Missouri has 4 sites in its state wide network.  They are Gateway at St. Louis, Greater Kansas City, Columbia at Missouri University, Prairie Lands at St. Joseph, and a satelite site at Springfield.  The network meeting provided a half day session for site directors to plan before other participants arrived.  After about a 30 minute session where sites produced a presentation reporting on their yearly activities, someone at the site presented that product.  A dinner meeting was held with the guest speaker Ben Nelms, founder of the Missouri Writing Project. Jayne Marlink, National Writing Project State and Regional Networks Coordinator and California Writing Project Executive Director reported from the national writing project.  The following day was full of numerous breakout sessions.  The sessions were the true model of the writing project of teachers teaching teachers.  A final 15 minute session with ones site directors to set the stage for fall meetings and activities.  Aug. 23, 2006 Prairie Lands will celebrate Rural Poetry with a poetry reading for the public.  This evening will showcase the top 10 young poets from northwest Missouri along with several local published poets reading their pieces.  Next deadline is submission of the mini technology grant purposal.  After that is the Fall finish, the last official meeting for the Summer Institute fellows.  Then on to nationals where Chico friends will reunite.

Missouri Network Meeting 2006
A dead battery, a deffective waterpump was the start.
Once we arrived the directors meeting had things jump started.
The introduction and reflection of what is happening at individual sites made everyone feel

as if they had a working knowledge of the whole network. This made the retreat start with a

comfortable feeling.
Dinner meeting was a hit, with fine food and memories of the beginning of National Writing

Project.
Check in at the Stoney Creek Inn made for a rocky checkin when their computers went splat.
This morning came early, but this break out session looks to be on solid ground to start as

we were handed a paper copy of all the site addresses we will be visiting.
A true NWP meeting starts with the familiar writing prompt.