One assignment involves researching history of one’s own name.
By Devin Dziuk
Three English teachers at this college were involved in a summer writing institute at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The five-week project was a part of the National Writing Project.
According to the organization’s Web site, the program enables teachers to create better writing success in the classroom, and assists teachers of kindergarten through college level.
The project is a network of teachers and writers who come together in a particular chapter and discuss ideas to improve writing and to share their works.
Tuition for participants was paid through a $45,000 grant from the project and matched by UTSA.
Instructors Kim Saxton, Kalpana Iyengar and Lennie Irvin, who is the co-director of the San Antonio Chapter of the project, were faculty from this college.
“Writing gives you great confidence,” Iyengar said. “I have used the material that I learned (from the workshop), and applied it toward the class.”
As a result of the workshop, Iyengar created a “name game” where students had to take the history of their name and write an essay about what they learned.
They were given partners who swapped their information, and then the partner took the information to present to her ENGL 0300 and 0301, Basic English, classes.
Iyengar counted this assignment as 10 percent of the class grade.
She also learned that creating better writing comes in three steps: press, address and bless.
Press is the initial editing of the story.
Address is where the instructor will point out the issues of the story to the student, and finally the bless is where the instructor will praise the student’s writing ability, improvements and style.
“It’s teachers teaching teachers,” Roxanne Henkin, director of the San Antonio chapter of the National Writing Project, said in a phone interview.
Henkin is a professor in the department of interdisciplinary studies and instruction at UTSA.
“These teachers also write themselves and share ideas,” Henkin said.
Irvin said that technology is becoming a big part of writing.
Digital storytelling allows students to create a writing piece through Powerpoint, or video, and gets away from the chalk board.
For more information and to view the daily logs on this program, visit the Web site at sanantoniowritingproject.org.