In the summer of 2008, I decided to take a colleague's advice and apply to the Long Island Writing Project's Summer Institute after a few years of hearing her say, "You should do this," as she held the application in her hand.

After all, she's a highly respected teacher, and I found her writing to be impressive.  I knew she was trying to lead me in direction that would benefit me, both personally and professionally.  That, I found, was an understatement.  She was trying to change my life.

I was not sure what that summer was going to be like.  I didn't know any of the other teachers, and I'd only been teaching for a few years myself.  So what did I have to offer this group of professionals?  And what could they offer me?  I found that we all shared more with each other than just innovative ideas for teaching writing; we shared enthusiasm, we shared a desire pass that enthusiasm on to our students, and we shared a hope that our students would be inspired to care about writing.  Without that enthusiasm and hope, we would just be a bunch of people trying to make students learn to write.  Instead, we are a group of professional teachers AND learners who want the best for our students, and who take courses, go to conferences, read books and learn from our successes and our failures in order to become the best writing teachers we can be.  And so we shared our writing, our lessons, our ideas, and our stories of what we found did or did not work in our classrooms.  And, to steal a line from our site leader Melanie Hammer, I realized I'd found my people.  People who were not  satisfied with teaching students to fill in the correct bubble, or fill up a box or some lines.  They wanted to teach students to think on multiple levels using the tools given to them, therefore enabling them to take on any writing task, not just "Fill in the graphic organizer."   The world is not made up simply of graphic organizers or scantrons.  Why should our classrooms be?  This was something we all agreed on,  and our book of lessons that we put together at the end of our institute reflects just that.

Since then, I have taken advantage of some incredible opportunities.  Last summer, I was a teacher at our Teen Writing Camp.  My experience this summer at the Teen Writing Camp helped me gain some more energy and focus after a long school year.  Having been beaten down by people wanting me to focus on tests more than anything else, it was a thrill to work with students in a creative way and have that be encouraged.  What a concept!  I do not know of any other place where teenagers can get together and work with other like-minded teens on writing on poetry, fiction, non-fiction and plays.  It seems that such a place is more important now than it ever was, since so many English classrooms are focusing on testing, therefore crushing the creative process that actually encourages real thinking and learning.  I was so excited to be a part of this experience for them, and I left on the last day realizing that the experience there was similar to the experience I'd had in 2008:  I was inspired and excited about teaching.  I actually wanted to get right back into the classroom because the ideas and the enthusiasm was so high afterwards.  Imagine, it was mid-July, and I wanted the summer to be over so I could light the spark that had been rekindled in me.  I will be working there again this summer, quite possibly with students currently in my classrooms.  I have described the program to them, and a few want to be part of it.  And so the enthusiasm for writing gets passed on.

In addition to these programs, I've also taken part in a monthly writing group for our NWP members, and I recently went to a conference in Albany as a representative of the Long Island Writing Project..  Professionals from other New York projects attended the conference as well.  We talked about the future of the project, what we can bring to our projects, how we can better serve members of our projects, which will then better serve our students.  Again, the enthusiasm was inspiring, which was so helpful to me as a person, and as I teacher.  Being around other members of the NWP, I find, pushes me to become a better teacher.  I often find it intimidating to hear what others are doing in their classrooms, but I make it my goal to bring some of their innovative ideas into my classroom.  That encouragement and support is so important.  My students benefit greatly from my involvement with the NWP, as I have seen them become more enthusiastic writers.  I have had parents tell me, "I didn't know she could write like that" after reading an emotional, and poem their daughter wrote for an assignment I gave in class.  And I have had parents thank me for including more writing in my lessons, not just fill in some bubbles or write a few lines.  Today, one of my students stated that my tests are difficult because they have to write and think so much.  One even explained that my voice is in her head at all times, asking for details and full explanation of her ideas.  I'm doing something right.  And as an organization, we are doing something right, because we are encouraging students to think. 

Sincerely,

Heather Robertson

Long Island Writing Project