Volume 29 No.

2 Spring 2010
A Publication of the South Coast Writing Project
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara

POSTSCWRIP
“I knew that the knowledge
successful teachers had gained
through their experience and
practice in the classroom was
not tapped, sought after,
shared, or for the most part,
even known about. I knew also
that if there was ever going to
be reform in American
education, it was going to take
place in the nation’s
classrooms. And because
teachers —and no one else—
were in those classrooms, I
knew that for reform to
succeed, teachers had to be at
the center.”
James Gray

The passing of the torch: SCWriP’s long-time director Sheridan Blau is pictured above
with our soon-to-be director, Tim Dewar.

Spring Renewal, May 21:

It’s About the Writing Project, and You Are at the Center
Join us on Friday, May 21, from 9 to 3, for a very special Renewal, to be held, (one last
time!) at the Cliff House. Our facilitator will be SCWriP’s incoming director, Tim Dewar. (Look
inside for Tim’s candid reflections as he steps into this role, and welcoming thoughts from
Sheridan.) The Renewal will be an opportunity to get to know Tim, revisit the fundamental
principles of the writing project, ponder where we are headed, and consider what the project
has meant to each of us. Be ready to write, to share, to realize anew what a beautiful
community this is, and to go home feeling…well, renewed. You know what? This could be
exactly what you need. Coffee and treats will be served, but please bring along a potluck
contribution. Carpooling is recommended. RSVP (805) 893-4422.
 From The Editor Cynthia Carbone Ward
Tim Dewar’s article in this edition of PostSCWriP got me thinking about what the South Coast Writing Project has meant to me,
both personally and professionally. I had twice deferred but finally decided to attend the Summer Institute in 2001, carpooling
with a teacher named Vickie Gill. Although Vickie and I both worked at the Dunn School in Los Olivos, we had only a
nodding acquaintance; she was at the upper campus and I at the middle school and we seldom interacted. But put two hyper-
verbal women-of-a-certain-age in a car together for an hour or so a day, and it doesn’t take long before they know each very
well. Vickie quickly became -- and still is -- one of my dearest friends. And that was just the first of the gifts SCWriP gave me.

I remember well the sense of having found “my people” in that Summer Institute
classroom – teachers to whom excellence mattered, and who really understood the It was a summer of
importance of writing and the teaching of it. I loved our group; the room buzzed
with creativity and enthusiasm and I felt myself to be a part of a professional
camaraderie, new
network in a way I had never known. There was also the phenomenon of Sheridan, ideas and reflections,
of course, in all his exuberance and brilliance, bringing out the best in each of us,
and Jack, so graciously sharing the wisdom of his long career, and the insightful and
and abundant
talented Rosemary, who sometimes gave me poems. (Oh, how I love a friend who laughter -- gifts of
brings you poems!) It was a summer of camaraderie, new ideas and reflections, and
laughter in abundance…gifts of SCWriP. SCWriP.
I returned to school that year feeling energized, more confident, and brimming with activities I couldn’t wait to share with my
students. It all seems so innocent now and long ago -- a terrible September morning was days away, and the world was about
to change in a cataclysmic way. But even when it did, I knew without a doubt that writing and teaching have a lot to do with
hope and getting through. I now possessed what Erin Powers (one of my 2001 summer cohorts) refers to as “the compass”; I
knew who I was as a teacher.

Our Writing Project continues. Through changes in leadership, office space, funding, and educational climate, the fundamental
truth of it persists, and maybe this is a good time to revisit and consider it a bit if you’ve forgotten. I hope to see you all at the
May 21 Renewal, and in the meantime, please enjoy this edition of PostSCWriP, plush as it is with poetry, prose, and promise.

Here’s to SCWriP, and long may it live, welcoming new generations of teachers whose students will benefit, manifold.

In this Edition: PAGE

An Open Letter from Sheridan Blau 3

Notes from Tim Dewar 5
Washington Update by Susan Fitzgerald 7
Technology by Teri Cota and Linda Sparkuhl 9
Young Writers Camp by Aline Shapiro 10
The Bulletin Board: Notes and News 11
Kids’ Thoughts on Racism 13
Adjusting My Balance by Cynthia Carbone Ward 14
Ruminations of Retirement by Sally Sibley King 15
O Lucky Man by Kelly Peinado 16
On Teaching Now by Beth Kanne-Casselman 17
Random Acts of Haiku by Bob Isaacson 17
Poems from the Cliff House and Elsewhere 18
A Legacy for Tim and An Open Letter to All of You from Sheridan Blau
I am profoundly sorry I can’t be there for the spring renewal
meeting, where Rosemary had planned to have some ceremonial
enactment of my passing the torch of the directorship of SCWriP
to my successor, Tim Dewar, who will be assuming the role of
SCWriP Director at the start of the 2010 Summer Institute. So I’ll
try here in this little note to all of you to satisfy our sense that
some ceremonial gesture is in order, and that it can be
accomplished in a written message, though I don’t imagine that
anything I write now will capture the depth of feeling I would
experience and have already experienced in giving up my own
identity as Director of SCWriP and turning over that title to Tim,
though he is the most qualified and most thoroughly prepared
successor I could ever imagine or wish for.

But turning over that title and responsibility to anyone feels to me something like turning over my title and
responsibility as father to a family. It’s something like a death, and maybe can’t quite be done in one’s own
lifetime without feeling – at least sometimes -- like a death. But families grow up and one generation succeeds the
next, and the family that Jack, and Carol and I began together in 1979 has grown up and retired and some of its
members have passed away. In the meantime, a new generation has matured to take our place, just as a new
generation has arrived on the scene as SCWriP Fellows, not so much replacing the previous generation, but in
stages taking on their roles and responsibilities. In that sense, all of us from the early days of our Project are doing
or have already done what I am now called upon to do. And we have been conscious for many years of our need
to do it well, to bring along the next generation of teacher-leaders for our Project, and to pass on to them the spirit
and values that have sustained us and that we too inherited from our mentors and most of all from the founder of
the Bay Area Writing Project, James Gray.

In fact, Tim’s succession to the role of SCWriP Director has been in our
Project’s plans and dreams for at least a decade. He was my own choice as my
So, though I am ideal successor about a decade ago, when I first contemplated my eventual
sad to relinquish retirement, but I couldn’t imagine an academic scenario in which we could
arrange an appointment for him at UCSB that would enable him to serve as
my former role as Director of SCWriP. In the meantime, Tim completed his PhD and took a
professorial job at the State University of New York in New Paltz, where to our
Director, I am advantage he became a co-director of the Hudson Valley Writing Project and
thrilled to be made himself even better qualified to serve eventually as the Director of
SCWriP. Then fate (plus vigorous lobbying on the part of several of us)
replaced by the conspired to make it possible for him to return to UCSB in a faculty position
best heir I could where a significant portion of his appointment can be held in the Writing
Project as its director. So, though I am sad to relinquish my former role as
ever imagine… Director, I am thrilled to be replaced by the best heir I could ever imagine, and
I recognize that my “death” as director is the avenue to another life for me and
renewed vitality for our Writing Project.

And this brings me to the legacy of advice I want to leave with Tim, since there isn’t anything else that I can hand
over symbolically and literally that might be as useful or as reducible to a few well-constructed sentences. So what
advice do I want to leave with Tim to comfort him and guide him in the political storms and turbulent financial
seas that always trouble and threaten any writing project or any independently funded project situated in a
university?
 My first recommendation is to never miss a day or
even an hour in the Summer institute. Your presence
That legacy that all of us share is a way of affirming the importance of what you have
and are responsible for scheduled for SCWriP teachers to do. If you can miss
it, you shouldn’t have scheduled it. My second
continually renewing resides recommendation is to listen to Rosemary, and trust
her judgment. Rosemary knows how teachers think
less in our repetition of words and feel and has a good built-in sense of what is and
expressing principles than in isn’t in the spirit of the Writing Project. Her instincts
were responsible for a number of programs that
our daily actions as teachers seemed to run against the grain of conventional
and leaders of professional practice at our site and throughout the NWP. For
example, Rosemary defied many conventions for
development programs for inservice programs in proposing and developing our
IIMPaC project, one of the most important
other teachers… innovations in the history of our Project’s inservice
efforts and an innovation that has influenced other
NWP sites across the country. And her instincts were responsible for our ELL special interest group and the
surprising decision to spend three very productive years in that group talking and writing about racism. Third, trust
yourself and your intellectual experience, even if that means that you have to argue with Rosemary. Sometimes
when you disagree with her (but not often) you’ll be right and she’ll come to agree with you. You need the
dialogue with each other to learn from each other and make the best decisions, which often represent a
perspective that neither of you could have arrived at alone. Fourth, don’t trust anybody to watch the finances of
our Project or to protect its budget as well as you can as the Project Director. The budget is your responsibility
and, while you need to count on staff in the School of Education to keep track of income and expenditures and
report balances to you, you need to keep in your head a sense of what the income has totaled and what kind of
expenses are to be expected, and to insist on careful accounting reports when your sense of what ought to be
available isn’t matched by a budget report. Inconsistencies are almost always the result of a failure to credit
SCWriP accounts properly or the result of charges made against SCWriP accounts to cover expenses that the
university ought to be covering on behalf of SCWriP. Whenever you aren’t attentive, SCWriP will be charged for
expenditures that some other account ought to be paying.

Notice that my legacy of advice is largely practical and even financial rather than spiritual or theoretical. That is
because the spirit of the Writing Project and the theory that informs all that we do and value is already well-
known and deeply felt by Tim as an integral part of his thinking and sense of responsibility as an educator and
writing project leader. Moreover, that legacy that all of us share and are responsible for continually renewing
resides less in our repetition of words expressing principles than in our daily actions as teachers and leaders of
professional development programs for other teachers. It is the legacy we have all received directly or indirectly
from the spiritual parent we share in James Gray, founder of the Bay Area Writing Project and the California and
National Writing Projects. That is the most important legacy Tim has inherited, and it is not mine to give to him,
since I too received it from Jim as a gift to be cherished and shared with all writing project directors and teachers
who will continue to share it with their colleagues for as long as the Project continues to be worthy of its founder
and its founding principles.

Many of the things which can never be, often are. Norton Jester, The Phantom Tollbooth
 Notes from Three Thousand Miles
and Three Years Away
by Tim Dewar (’94)
“The writing project is a not a writing curriculum or even a
collection of best strategies; it is a structure that makes it
possible for exemplary teachers to share with other teachers
ideas that work.”
Jim Gray, Teachers at the Center, P.84

In preparation for returning to SCWriP as director, I’ve been

rereading Jim Gray’s memoir of the creation of the writing
project, Teachers at the Center. When I read it previously I found it a delight; it filled in the history of
an organization I dearly love. It was like sitting around after a holiday meal with a distant relative and
hearing stories of one’s ancestors. Warm. Comforting. Leisurely.

Now I read it desperately trying to grasp every tip and insight Gray offers I think of SCWriP
about how to successfully run a writing project. I am a highly motivated
reader, underlining, flagging, and annotating. What if I miss the secret of
as my intellectual
success? Now it is like preparing the multi-course, tradition-filled holiday home. It is where
meal, and I want to be sure to follow the recipes exactly. High-pressure.
Nerve-wracking. Scary.
I grew-up as a
teacher.
But I learned from that earlier reading, from the stories told and retold, that
the details are not as important as the big picture. I think Gray captures the big idea in the quote at the
head of this article. The writing project is a structure that allows teachers to learn together. It is right
there in his title, too. Teachers are at the center, of learning, of the change, of the project. This calms
my nerves, and lowers the pressure of returning to direct SCWriP. I will be surrounded by you, teachers
who care about writing, literacy, students (not necessarily in that order!). We all care about the
continued success of SCWriP. I am not in this alone. None of us are. For thirty years, SCWriP has
managed to bring teachers together to learn together.

My life with SCWriP doesn’t go quite that far back, but at every juncture in my career, SCWriP has been
significant. In the middle of my credential year, I spent three weeks in the forerunner to mini-SCWriP. I
wrangled invitations to renewals at Cliff House long before I attended the Summer Institute in 1994. The
first time I attended NCTE’s Annual Convention, I rode to San Diego with a carload of SCWriP fellows.
When I needed to know more about teaching reading, I found that other SCWriP teacher-consultants
were asking the same questions. We came together to study. When my desire to learn brought me back
to graduate school, I depended upon my writing project experiences and colleagues to guide me. When
I needed a dissertation, well, I wouldn’t have one without SCWriP and NWP.
Most importantly, my best teaching moments were inspired by (or learned directly from) other writing
project fellows. At every turn of my career, SCWriP and NWP teacher-consultants have been there
(None more than Sheridan, but that is a topic for another time). I think of SCWriP as my intellectual
home. It is where I grew-up as a teacher.

Three years ago I left “home,” taking a position at SUNY

The writing project is a New Paltz to teach in the Department of Secondary
network meant to support Education. It was a writing project connection that led me
here. The Hudson Valley Writing Project is located at this
teachers as they pursue campus, with the two directors in my department. The buzz
what they think will make and excitement of teachers teaching each other felt familiar.
The writing project spirit was pervasive. HVWP is a young
their teaching, and their site, not yet ten years old, taking on everything it can. I’ve
students’ learning, better. been thrilled to join with the teachers here to think about
All that the network asks leadership, partnering (as opposed to partnership), and, of
course, writing. I’m more thrilled to be bringing back what
in return is that teachers I’ve learned.
share what they learn.
This seems the essence of the writing project, whether it is
located on the coast of California or in the Hudson River
Valley. I learn from you as you learn from me. Or to put this
in the plural, we learn from each of you as you learn from us. The writing project is a network meant to
support teachers as they pursue what they think will make their teaching, and their students’ learning,
better. All that the network asks in return is that teachers share what they learn. When a site is really
humming, it feeds teachers and is fed by them.

I am excited to help this continue at SCWriP. As always, we face many challenges as teachers, from the
trials of individual students in our classes to the finances of the state to evolving federal policies. Just as
SCWriP has supported me in my career to meet the inevitable challenges, I know SCWriP can support
all of us today and in the future. After all, we are at the center.

Those wonderful years in SCWriP -

I remember the first day of every
SCWriP summer Institute,
when everyone was a little uncomfortable:
‘Well. she’s a college professor
and I’m just a ….”
but by the second day on,
we were all one.
It was the power of shared writing
that brought us all
together.
Ah, those days!
by Jack Phreaner
 Stride Purposefully:
The NWP Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.
by Susan Fitzgerald (’02)

But words are things, and a drop of ink, falling, like dew upon a thought, produces that
which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Lord Byron

In the last few weeks, I have attended four public events in which my students proclaimed their winning
words, their thoughts and ideas, to the world. Parents clicked, and clicked, and clicked, not only
capturing the occasion but also sending it out into the universe via cell phone. Listeners laughed and
applauded. Students felt proud, creative, and accomplished. Smiling faces, appreciative audiences,
emergent voices raised in self-expression…

As writing teachers, we all no doubt resonate with the energy and creativity of these simple events
when our students let their words loose into the world. It’s the reason we come together at renewals,
our fingers itching to get to work, our ears on high alert for the magical word or phrase or the wisdom of
another, our voices strong, but in awe as we proclaim our own creativity in community.

As I ponder on my response to the Spring Meeting of the National Writing Project in Washington, D.C.,
I feel compelled to start right here, with the words, the kids, and ourselves – the basic cells of the entire
project. From the fifty states of the nation, each person there represented hundreds of these cells,
duplicated, added to, and expressed differently, but coming together in community, to raise our
collective voice in support of our National Writing Project.

It was in this spirit that Rosemary Cabe, Mary Arias, and I headed out on a Thursday afternoon to visit
Congresswoman Lois Capps. Traditionally NWP has held its Spring Meeting in the nation’s capital so
that members can lobby as a galvanized unit for the federal funding which has helped to fuel the
project since 1991. In 2010, Congress provided $25.65 million for the NWP, administered by the
Department of Education. This year, the NWP was asking for an additional 2%.
 I must admit it was exciting to stride purposefully out onto
The dire fact of the Capitol Hill. The Healthcare Bill was finally being passed into
law, bureaucrats in suits and ties dashed to and fro, and the
matter, though, was cherry blossoms were burgeoning with the promise of pink. As
that funding for 2011 a first time visitor to D.C. and a reluctant American, my
patriotism was stirred by the grandeur and overwhelming
was not as inevitable as sense of space – a space in which anything is possible. The
the cherry blossom. dire fact of the matter, though, was that funding for 2011 was
not as inevitable as the cherry blossom. As we know, the
proposed federal budget for 2011 would eliminate the NWP
allocation and consolidate its funding into a competitive grant program at the state level called Effective
Teaching and Learning: Literacy. If you have not already done so, please visit the NWP site and its Ning,
which explain the implications and consequences of this proposal and asks for your help in recruiting
others to contact our legislators.

Armed with this knowledge, we arrived for our appointment with Congresswoman Capps. I know I felt
weighed down by the gravity of the situation, but my predominant feeling was one of incredulity. I
could not believe that the current administration could be the one to end NWP, and all that it
symbolizes, its achievements and its future potential. Lois Capps has supported the Writing Project in
the past, and had already signed this year’s “Dear Colleague” letter. She and her aide received us
graciously, listening attentively to our success stories and seeing our passion for the project. It soon
became apparent that they were unaware of the implications of the proposed funding scenario, assuring
us that NWP was still a named line item. They had not understood that the very infrastructure that
delivers so effectively at the national level would be destroyed were it to function purely on a state-to-
state basis. Clarifying this key point was crucial to our visit. It was sobering to realize that even our
supporters had not grasped the essence of proposals
that would jeopardize Congress’ longtime investment in
NWP and effectively eradicate it.
The National Writing
Later that evening and the following morning, the mood Project is no less a treasure,
was sober yet hopeful, the call to action clear. In spite
of the harsh realities of our financial situation, we did
affecting thousands of
what we do best: we looked at students’ writing, we teachers and millions of
wrote, and we shared our stories.
students annually.
Exploring the National Mall was pure joy for me. I ran
from place to place feasting my eyes on the history and
creativity of our country, feeling connected and part of the emerging story. Visiting the national
monuments by moonlight (and in arctic conditions) was truly inspiring, although cold. I felt a sense of
ownership and belonging. The National Writing Project is no less a treasure, affecting thousands of
teachers and millions of students annually. Like our students who overcome their fears when they read
their first poem aloud, let us continue to advocate for our NWP, for writing, and for an education
system that will inspire the critical and creative thinkers we need for the future.
 Technologically Speaking by Teri Cota (’04) and Linda Sparkuhl (’02)

Front row: (L to R) Jenna Garcia, Linda Sparkuhl, Sandy Robertson, Sue Whisenand, Rosemary Cabe; back row: Mary Lourdes Silva, Jack
Phreaner, Bojana Hill, Lorna Gonzalez, Mark Urwick, Nicole Schon; on computer screen: Jon Margerum Leys, Teri Cota in inset taking photo.

When Lorna Gonzalez created our beautiful SCWriP Ning (online community) last year, many of us greeted it with
enthusiasm. The idea of a cyber meeting place that would allow our collegial conversations to continue beyond
Institutes and Renewals--unrestricted by the geographical distances between us--was attractive and compelling.
Until now, Ning has provided a free option, which is what we have used (especially welcome during this time
when SCWriP, like everyone else, has to watch its pennies). Unfortunately, it appears that the free option may be
eliminated, and that-- along with the fact that not as many folks are visiting as we’d initially hoped—was one of
the topics of conversation at the April 28th Technology Committee meeting. Whether we decide to expand and
revise the use of our official University website (http://education.ucsb.edu/scwrip/), or can continue to explore
ways to use the Ning (http://scwrip.ning.com/), one idea that the Tech Committee eagerly embraced is that of
featuring a SCWriP Fellow in a special way approximately once a month. Our kick-off Featured Teacher will be
none other than our beloved Jack Phreaner, who will be sharing his Neighborhood Map activity online. Stay
tuned!

Other discussion items were how we would support Young Writers Camps this summer, and the creation of an
Interactive Whiteboard Study Group in Ventura under the leadership of Mark Urwick. If you are fortunate enough
to have an interactive whiteboard (such as a SmartBoard or Promethean) in your classroom and would like to
share your best practices or “aha moments” with us, please consider using the Ning site as a way to do that.

One of our most successful endeavors was the 2009 Summer Technology Institute. It received enthusiastic
reviews from participants, and we had high hopes for continuing the work and conversations that began during
that time into the summer of 2010. Our collective creativity was taxed at the meeting as we sought to think of
ways to do this within the tighter budgetary constraints that color every decision in education these days.
Happily, it looks as if we will able to collaborate with Santa Barbara School District (thank you, Sandy Robertson!)
to share resources in order to make another Summer Institute available. Keep the week of August 9-13 open if you
would like to present, or participate. Have ideas for offerings? Please contact Linda Sparkuhl, our Technology
Liason at lsparkuhl@mac.com.
 Summer Means Young Writers Camp … And We’re Ready
by Aline Shapiro (’91)

YWC teachers gather in April for a planning session.

SCWriP Fellows who will be teaching this summer at Young Writers Camp met for a day of planning on
Saturday, April 24th. There was excitement in the air as teachers renewed friendships, met new
participants, and began sharing ideas.

Students at Young Writers Camp write, of course, but the program is also about local field trips and
hands-on projects. Using the resources that are available at each of the four college campuses, teachers
prepare writing lessons that complement field trips and visits by guest presenters. This year, for
example, the folks at UCSB’s radio station have asked campers to visit and write public service
announcements. In addition, the TV station staff at Oxnard College will work with campers to produce
a television show. In the past we have visited campus bookstores, college dorms, theater and dance
departments, art museums and campus snack bars.

We have an exceptionally dynamic group teaching this summer. They are: Jan Brown, Mark Jasso, Lisa
Torina and Julianne Tullis-Thompson at Allan Hancock; Jade Torres, Matt McCaffrey, Linda Sparkuhl,
Peggy Nicholson, Lisa O’Connell, Barbara Conway, Amy Christensen and Amy McMillan at UCSB;
Sally King, Darryl Lewis-Abriol, Carolyn Gleisberg, Amada Perez and Kimbrough Ernest at Oxnard
College; Susan Fitzgerald and Paul Fitzgerald (mother and son team) and Mark Urwick and Matt Urwick
(a brother team) at Cal Lutheran.

The camp presents a great opportunity for Fellows to teach in pairs to complement teaching styles and
prepare innovative lessons. If you are interested next summer, be sure to contact the SCWriP office by
January because recruiting begins very early and often there is a waiting list.

And please continue to help us recruit campers! Camp dates are July 12th-23rd, except at Oxnard
College, which is July 12th-29th. Call the office (805-893-4422) and we’ll gladly send you more
brochures, or you can download applications and flyers from the Young Writers Camp website:
www.education.ucsb.edu/ywc.
 The Bulletin Board:
News and Notes from SCWriP Fellows

Maybe It’s Time for a Writing Group…

Lois Klein (’04) is starting a second writing group (the first one has been going strong for a year and a half). The
group is directed toward those with a commitment to their writing, whatever their level of experience. The 8-week
session will meet for two hours weekly in Lois’ home, with enrollment limited to seven people. The day and time
will be based on the needs of participants.

In Lois’ words: “I will provide a number of writing exercises and prompts designed to sneak around our insistent
left brains and ease our internal critics. Whether your style is memoir, poetry, essay or narrative, the expression of
what has real meaning for you is what moves you into powerful and authentic writing. There will be a chance to
share aloud what you have written – giving voice to your work allows it to live.”

For more information, contact Lois at 805-969-2249 or

lois.klein@verizon.net.

A New Book from Val…

Valerie Hobbs (’81) has done it again. Her newest book is called the
Last Best Days of Summer, and it’s geared for middle-grades. To find out
more, visit Val’s blog at
http://www.valeriehobbswritingforlife.blogspot.com/ or her website at
http://www.valeriehobbs.com.

Courageous Conversations Continue…

Leah Panthier and Kristin Jensen Storey (’04) report that they
have begun their co-facilitation of the ELL Courageous Conversations
group. Their last meeting was on April 19 at the UCSB Ventura Center,
where they appreciated the opportunity to share readings and discussions
that enhance a deeper understanding of issues of race and equity in
classrooms and in the writing project. Valerie Hobbs

Kristin also represented SCWriP at the Urban Sites Conference in Portland, Oregon April 23-24 and brought back
ideas and insights to share at the next meeting. In June, Leah and Kristin will attend the National Writing Project's
"Recruiting for Diversity" retreat in Minnesota. This will be an excellent opportunity for learning and reflecting on
ways to open up our project to more diversity in fellows, speakers, and content.

Elsewhere in this edition of PostSCWriP, you can find excerpts from essays about racism written by students in
Kristin’s class.

Well-Deserved Recognition…
Phil Levien (’01) was named Santa Barbara County’s Distinguished Educator for 2009-10. An English and
drama teacher at San Marcos High, Phil is particularly well known for his sheltered Shakespeare theater
production classes in which he works with English language learners, special education students, and students at
risk.
A Personal Learning Network…
Jason Whitney ('05) has a new blog called Whitneymeister's English Education Blog: Part of an
Ever- Expanding Personal Learning Network, in which he explores an experiment in overhauling his
courses to incorporate numerous Web 2.0 technologies to
create a Personal Learning Network. Written from a
practitioner's standpoint, the blog details how Jason, without
any real skill in using technology, implemented fairly radical
changes in his approach beginning in January 2010, the first
day of his spring semester "Adolescent Literacy and
Literature" course at Penn State. He found that in a matter of
weeks it recharged his approach to teaching, created a
powerful learning experience and contributed to the
professionalism, knowledge, and abilities of the pre-service
teachers in his class.

As the semester unfolded, Jason discovered that through the

use of blogs, wikis, social networking, The English
Companion Ning, video conferencing, course readings, and
face-to-face interactions, his students were challenged to
expand their learning by finding resources and networks of
people, and by blogging about their emerging
understandings.

Jason now believes that any course he would teach in the future would benefit from the connections
and resources afforded by a Personal Learning Network, and he would like to bring other SCWRiP
fellows into the conversation, both with his blog and that of his students.

Go to whitneymeister.wordpress.com if you would like to see an example of how Jason set up his
course and the various understandings that he and his students have developed on the subjects of
English, English Education, Reading, Writing, Educational Technology, and other related topics.

What About This Summer?

Summer can be a special time to grow and thrive. Whether your goals include professional
development, awakening of creativity, or both, there are great opportunities on the horizon. Consider
SCWriP’s dynamic Summer Technology Institute, to be held the week of August 9 – 13 in collaboration
with the Santa Barbara School District. Or maybe one of Joni Chancer’s amazing seminars would
provide the inspiration you crave. Perhaps the “Teacher as Writer and The Teaching of Writing” with
Cynthia Carbone Ward and Vickie Gill? Details about these and other possibilities will be available
from SCWriP soon. Watch for further word.

Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get
you. And all you can do is go where they can find you. Winnie the Pooh
 Kids Speak Out On Racism:
Thoughts from 8th Graders in Mrs. Storey’s AVID Class at R.J. Frank Intermediate

I was very young when I began to realize that there were other races. Fortunately, I was brought up in a home
where your race or skin color didn’t matter. My mom taught me that what matters is in the heart. When you’re a
racist, you’re only seeing skin deep. The person inside could be so wonderful, but they are being judged by how
they look. When I came into my junior high I saw so many different people that I had to learn to look inside of
them. I have no right to judge anyone; to me only God can judge. Kenja Perez

I hope America will someday embrace all races and not use race to divide people. We should not care about the
differences of people, but think of the similarities. Without racism the world would be at peace, people hand in
hand of every race working together to build a better America. Everyone wants a better world. That’s a similarity
we all share… David Lai

In ten years from now I hope that race doesn’t matter and that everybody can greet each other with a smile. I’m a
Mexican-American and I have an attitude to treat everybody with respect. If you want to be my friend it doesn’t
matter to me where you come from or how you look. If you are a good friend with respect, I will be your friend.
Everybody should have this attitude and be willing to accept somebody and realize they’re just like you no matter
what race they are. Esteban Vasquez

My name is Meleena and I am proud to say that I am Mexican-American. I see myself as a dedicated Mexican-
American. I do participate in festivities like La Virgen de Guadalupe’s cumpleaños. To me it’s important to bring
out your culture because it’s a part of who you are and you should be proud to be Mexican, Asian, African-
American. It doesn’t matter if people are prejudiced. It’s their opinion and that can’t affect you no matter what…
Meleena Castañeda

I would hope that in ten years from now America would be known as a country that doesn’t judge people by the
color of their skin. After electing our first black president I would hope they keep that tradition until we have a
Mexican-American, Asian-American, or any other race president. If we are able to trust and stick with each other
we can some day set a reputation as a country who judges its citizens by character, not race. If we truly believe in
this cause we can make the decision not to pre-judge anyone. Mirka Cresencio
 Adjusting My Balance by Cynthia Carbone Ward (’01)

Two years into my amorphous retirement, I decided to go back to

campus and attend the Dunn Middle School 8th grade graduation Life without the
ceremony. Life without the usual structure and demands of usual structure and
teaching had been surprisingly disorienting for me; I was becoming
somewhat feral and thought it might be time to step out. I would demands of
merely be a visitor at this event, with no role other than to smile teaching had been
and seem normal if glimpsed. Feeling precarious and wary, I found
myself a seat among the folding chairs lined up on the grass. surprisingly
disorienting for me;
I felt a special connection to the kids who were graduating. As 6th
graders, they had been my very last class, and it was breathtaking I was becoming
now to see how much they had matured in two short years. One somewhat feral and
by one they stood at the podium to speak on the theme of ‘This I
Believe’, offering their 8th grade wisdom and philosophies of life: thought it might be
Embrace accidents. Take risks. Laugh often. Don't give up. Never time to step out.
forget how lucky we are. A couple of them spoke about hardships
they had known – the divorces of parents; not fitting in; even, in
one case, battling cancer – and how things had somehow worked out for the best and these experiences
had made them stronger. They talked about their passions, from music to baseball to spending time with
friends, and they talked about their dreams, and some of them cried afterwards, acutely aware that an
era had just ended. I was struck by their joy and well-being, these kids upon whom fortune appeared to
have smiled, and I was filled with hope that they would henceforth shine brightly and go on to do good
things.

My favorite part of the ceremony, though, was Marc

Kummel’s traditional ‘science experiment’ speech. Marc was
the legendary science teacher of Dunn Middle School, an
unassuming genius with wire-frame glasses and a white beard,
who also went by the fitting name of Treebeard. He always
used the graduation as an opportunity to demonstrate a law of
science, then proceeded to reveal it as a metaphor for living
life. The kids liked it best when he blew something up, but
today was a less explosive presentation, an experiment in
balance involving a broom and a walking stick. First he
showed how to balance each of these objects horizontally by
sliding his fingers along, correcting and overcorrecting until
the center of gravity was reached. He also balanced the
broom on one end, and balanced it again with the addition of
a weight, first high and then low, subtly correcting and
counter-correcting whenever the broom began to fall. Finding
the balance was a dynamic thing, and it was easier to balance
when the weight was placed high.
It’s like life and growing up, said Marc. If you keep your problems and worry too close all the time, and
your goals and expectations too low, you can’t maneuver. You need some space. Expect a lot, aim high,
but adjust your balance when you have to -- that’s how it works.

Meanwhile the kids sat by the stage beneath a white awning, all dressed up, looking beautiful and
heartbreakingly new, and the opening line of an old song by Neil Young found its way into my head:

There you stood on the edge of your feather

expecting to fly.

Maybe you will, I thought.

As for me, I now understood in scientific terms why I’d been feeling so wobbly: I was adjusting my
balance. I needed a little space to maneuver -- still do -- and I needed a little time, and I may feel like I
am falling now and then, but I’ll get there.

hhh

Ruminations of Retirement
by Sally Sibley King (’99)

I’m still cruising the aisles of the 99¢ Store and Costco looking for school supply
bargains: stickers, file folders, marking pens, Jolly Ranchers, Kleenex…

I’m still reading reviews of the latest Young Adult novel and how best to use my
“bonus points” for the Arrow Book Club..

I’m still suffering End-of-the-Weekend Blues, that gut-wrenching panic on Sunday

night: “What am I going to wear? …pack for lunch? …teach tomorrow?”

I’m still cutting articles from the newspaper, thinking of lessons on recycling, the
Winter Olympics, the heroes who have died…

I’m still reading about the latest education reform as I rail at those “experts” who
don’t know #?&#@ about REAL teachers and REAL kids and REAL schools…and
whose message has been “reformed” every year since I was a Teacher Corps
intern in 1971…

I’m still…a teacher.

O Lucky Man by Kelly Peinado (’04)

One October night at the Arlington, I was a part of something amazing: I heard
Garrison Keillor speak. Speak, of course, is an inadequate word to describe what Mr.
Keillor does. He creates magic. He opened a portal into the past, a past part real, part
literary, and we, the audience, wonderingly stepped through. At first, we naturally
assumed it was his past and his literature that we would tour, but soon it was obvious
that it was also our own. Mr. Keillor spoke with great dignity and deliberation. He
spoke with the weight of sadness, but also with tenderness, and even a hint of disbelief
at the astounding, the wonderful, the ordinary events he had lived to narrate.

He began by remarking that everything in life comes down to luck. He spoke of his
recent stroke, which occurred as he examined a tomato—the kind known as an
heirloom—at his local food co-op and chatted with the produce manager. He was
remarking that these heirloom tomatoes did not taste the same as the ones that his
Aunt Edna had grown 50 years before, when the stroke—what else can we say—
struck. He told of his understated, attention-deflecting Midwestern-style reaction,
driving himself to the hospital emergency room and politely waiting his turn in line as
the blood clot poised precariously in his brain.

He then led us further back in time to his childhood visits to Aunt Edna’s farm, speaking with deep gratitude of the love and
praise she offered him. He reminded us that children have hardly any epidermis, you see—he meant an emotional epidermis,
of course—and that a word of love or encouragement will pass through immediately to its target. With a few, well-chosen
details—how they sat cheek to cheek, sharing one set of headphones to listen to an old crystal set, her arm around his
shoulders—he let us know the depth of their affection for one another and the salvation it offered a sensitive boy who received
few outward signs of affection from his good, but undemonstrative, parents.

I paused here to ponder the very close call that he, and we, had with a great disaster and a terrible loss, which is what would
have occurred had the blood clot in his brain lodged somewhere close to that organ’s language center.

It could have blocked those precious heirlooms of memory, or perhaps blocked access to the words to tell them. For us, it
would have been like losing the only recordings of a great composer, or thousands of acres of a National Park, or a whole
gallery of Van Goghs, but worse, because we would have known that they existed but we had never yet had the chance to
experience them. Well. He, and we, escaped. The doctors told him many times what a lucky man he was.

Mr. Keillor then turned his attention to his move in 1968 to New York, where he went to Become a Writer, living in a
basement room of what was probably a shabby boarding house, but one that he made sound like the most magical, nurturing,
incubator for a novel that a writer could ever hope to find, with meals served on long tables under leafy trees, the chants of
nuns at a nearby convent filling the air, all for the astounding price of fifty dollars a week, breakfast and supper included. He
met a girl at that house, with the tantalizing name of Jessica James, and we understood that in his eyes, and through forty long
years of memory, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He spoke of one perfect, outlaw night on the 23 floor of the
rd

New Yorker Hotel, the lights of Manhattan spread below them like jewels.

He spoke also with love of his young daughter, child of his third—and, he reckons, final—marriage, and of the great joy she
emanates and in turn brings to his life. Although he tries to forearm himself for the possibility that one day she may turn surly
and wear so much metal in her face that she looks as if she’s “fallen face first into a tackle box,” he luxuriates in the purer
happiness of her present age eleven, the autumn of childhood. He described how she sails in their backyard swing from the
branches of a great elm tree (like all elms, fated to change, but alive for now) to the opposite branches of an apple tree. From
Elm to Apple, from Apple to Elm, she soars in the lovely fall afternoon.

As we listened, we sensed that we can be the artists, the shapers, the interpreters, of our own lives. We can narrate and
comprehend the events in such a way that we feel happy and blessed to be living them. Some skilled and judicious editing
will be required, but still… what luck, what very great luck. And then, quite suddenly, after 75 seamless minutes of raconteur
virtuosity without a single stumble, Mr.Keillor bowed, thanked us, and was gone. It was a shock, almost a bereavement. The
portal closed, he sent us back to our own lives, and we rose from our seats to resume them.
 On Teaching Now
by Beth Kanne-Casselman, (’00)

We have set sail towards Safe Harbor, they say. That is what they tell us.

It means three students. We choose three who might change the ship’s course; land us at Safe Harbor. Three in the
room to guide our classroom tugboat, tugging along the district’s ship against the windy wind and just beyond an
arbitrary buoy.

This buoy denies what is natural: Waves exist! A natural motion and curve to all things in nature is ever-present.
Scientists, artists, writers, engineers, farmers all know this and salute it.

We may think otherwise, but we are not immune to this motion, to the waves.

The energy we must pour into getting to the destination, to Safe Harbor, consumes us completely.

The teachable moment is forever lost in the foam of the waves. A fog rolls in… Day after gloomy day, there is
foggy fog.

The gift of an ocean breeze lifts in the wee hours, before the sun, before the noisy noise. I hear little feet pattering
and “Read this me.” The fog of sleep lifts from beyond my tired eye sockets. Still, I slowly rise to take hold of the
moment and try to make amends for the ones lost in the foam, long gone, day after day in the other little tugboat.

We board our small boat on the sofa and bob

around following the waves, the pages, the sunrise,
wherever they take us. Enjoying each teachable
moment.

There are natural waves in these times before I have

to begin again to navigate against the current I
believe in, toward Safe Harbor.

Maybe just for a few moments today, I will let the

tugboat bob around, trusting we will still arrive at
the right destination.

Random Acts of Haiku by Bob Isaacson (’85)

On Leave of Absence, Monday Morning, 8:00 a.m.: Now That I'm 61.5:
I open my front door— Lost cell phone.
A deck covered with ice. What was that password?
Stay home. Light a fire. Wallet missing. Give it up. Enjoy.

On Giving Editorial Advice to Someone about a Poem: On a “Cardio” Hike with My Daughter on a Breezy March Day:
I have crawled through the fence We plan a tough hike,
to a meadow not my own. but only pick mushrooms.
Call the sheriff. There’s a metaphor here.
 Poems from the Cliff House…
and Elsewhere

To The Cliff House

by Amada Irma Pérez (’98)

This place, this magic place with its constant rhythm and song waves
breaking, ebbing, flowing, whooshing, folding,
crashing a chorus of welcome sound
high tide, low tide
penetrating ocean smell
fragrant, aromatic sage
aromas absorbed with joy The Cliff House
by Lori Anaya (’09)
This house welcomes us
thirty years of fellows
writers, all Let my tears
a project with its parents and grandparents Infuse into wild blossoms
like Sheridan, Rosemary & Jack Ready to sow songs
a gift through seasons Past times in crashing stories
a space, a time, a place Waves of words sparkle on salt water
Time unzipping
This Home, a humble home Unblocking
a house upon a cliff
The soul of its intentions
with a touch of wildness all around
weeds and grasses, brushes and trees Notes of hope in the dark
allowed to grow as wild as our thoughts Caught on our plate of dreams shared,
cactus paddles in heart shapes by the door In a mirrored pool of brilliance.

Our Cliff House loves us

And we love this,
Our Writing Home.
Renewal by Rebecca Turner (’08) Fresh Weave by Sandy Robertson (’80)

I always wear socks here
and never enough of them.
Cold creeps in with long fingers
turning my stocking clad feet
into blocks of ice.
The pounding of the surf,
the breeze in the tall trees,
the companionship of like kind
always makes the cold feet worthwhile.
Escapes like this are never easy - however -
especially with a road jutted and pockmarked
from torrential rain. I maneuver my truck
around the massive puddles and holes.
They emerge slowly from the fog of endless lists,
agendas, flyers, rosters, and plans:
forgotten threads of a life left long lying
in the corner of a room
where now there’s time to sit and sort and savor
threads to be taken up and woven
a fine nib fountain pen
a paint brush full of red
sharp clippers for roses
a crisp apron for cooking
a fresh weave of words to write a dimly
remembered life from the threads discarded
in the rush of must do’s.

Jack waits for his hug in the parking lot -

in return he gives me a green slip of paper to park -
in this miserable lot.
(Can you imagine a tow truck managing out here?)

But - an escape it is, nonetheless.

So - for a short time, I am not the teacher, counselor, warden,

peacemaker, listener, janitor, advisor, organizer, or whatever –
If only for awhile - I am just the creative spirit inside me -
Sitting in a humble (yet cold) house by the sea
Feet tucked under me -
hot soup waiting.
Home Was by Matt Brown (’06)

Home was the small house, the one nestled into a hill on one of the 10,000 lakes in Minnesota, with towering
pines and molting birch; dirt roads that wove through the scattered light, breaking through tightly packed branches
that arched over the edges of the roads, isolated from most everyone by forests and lakes and miles of roads.

Home was racing along those roads with my sister, my only companion, on our banana-seat bikes, daring her to
ride into the darkness beyond the curve of the road—neither of us brave enough to do so. It was summer and
swimming and leeches stuck to the skin and Mom with the saltshaker.

It was catching toads and turtles and even a mouse which was quickly disposed of by my mother who tolerated
most creatures I wanted to adopt but not this disease ridden rodent even though I thought he was cute and had
planned to allow him to live out his days in the dried out minnow tank by the fish house.

Home was the warbled laugh of the loons calling out to each other across the lake and the splash of the northern
pike. It was swarms of mosquitoes and the biting smell of the repellant that never seemed to help.

It is the home that no longer exists—torn down and replaced with forest—a home within my memories.

Places by Rebecca Turner (’08)

The places that stir a memory

sweeten the lips into a smile, New York City, 2005
a warm tug on the heart. The Village
the clicking of heels
Wisconsin, summer rain in '62 people bustling, rushing to the subway
two girls running thru the streets in bathing suits the buildings tall and old
feeling the cool water pungent smells from the alley mixed with the aroma
cover hot sticky bodies of herbs and flowers.
giggling, laughing A striped yellow cat sits in the shop window
the thunder of my mother's scolding voice, watching me as I wander and buy a fragrant treasure.

Paris, 1970 Cliff house, 2010

The windowed courtyard in a Paris hotel
students chatting out the windows
me - with my miniscule French
them - with their broken English
the pipe tobacco from the old man down the hall
who banged on our door at night
- a vain attempt at flirtation.
The waves pound on the rocks.
My head empties on the paper.
Time stands still for a short time -
I can catch my breath once again
Slow down
and just be - if only for awhile -
to treasure the memories inside me.

New Orleans, 1994

The clicking of taps on the metal sheet
dragged by the children who danced in the street
-one Black, one White
to the 3-piece band playing a Dixieland tune
the smell of gumbo drifting out an open door
the air heavy and warm
A Tribute
by Ina Ettenberg (’01)

How tiny it is
this round, gray stone.
Really, so insignificant –
Just one of many, sunbathing
in the glistening sand,
sometimes splashed
by the cool, fresh waters of the lake.
Settled
This tiny pebble sits quietly, peacefully, by Kimbrough Ernest (’07)
seemingly, without purpose.
Overlooked, for Gudrun
as other stones are gathered –
those with broken edges, colorful sparkles,
Once we had two chairs
and curious shapes.
and lots of parties
in the top of an old house.
Later, when the air is still,
The deck off the kitchen
and day begins to disappear,
was almost as big as the apartment
and night quietly slips in to take its place...
and faced the Oakland hills.
This tiny pebble is lifted from its resting place,
You used to rise before me
and is tossed into the peaceful waters of the lake.
and tiptoe out
to make the coffee
It suddenly skips along the smooth mirror
naked.
that reflects the changing sky.
and with gentle kisses,
One night the hills were burning.
creates a composition of concentric circles,
Ash rained down on our wide deck,
each reaching out to touch a neighboring ribbon of
pieces of someone’s Bible
rings.
caught in your hair.
Suddenly, the stillness of that water comes alive –
We packed up the chairs
With a rhythm of life,
and photo albums
A spirit,
and went to dinner
An energy,
at Zza’s.
An orchestral crescendo-
In this house,
It is energized by the gentle touch of a tiny stone.
I wake up first.
We have plenty of chairs,
This is the pebble’s purpose –
but fewer parties.
to awaken the sleeping potential.
And the coffee machine
is on a timer.
This is who I am –
a teacher!
 The Soldier in my Class
by Pat Ewing (’08)

It's because I have the pen, I would say,

that the lectures, prompts, and handouts pay
all the bills that come all days to me, with a pride
that maybe hides a sinful guilty side in me.

But I have to say that he, when he sits

in that small, shitty seat, that I have to stare
at his tattoos which are not a generational ruse
but scars from an Iraq intrusion.

And I think, why me? Because I have the pen,

The degree? I stand here, you there,
my students' mortal dreams or nightmares that might die,
as I fancy seeing a linguistic ending.

I am leaning back. I read his words, clumsily-

Formed they are by fingers that attack, which bore my
freedom, tickling a trigger, and I call him lazy, for missing a margin,
when the fact is, I am the one off target.

He never was. My student. Off-target.

Copy-Change of Imagining It by Kate Barnes

by Kristin Jensen Storey (’04)

At forty-five, on the weather-worn wood plank patio just outside the Cliff House doors,
just after an opening session of shared reading, I sat with legs outstretched, sun warming my head,
ocean breeze against my skin, the music of the Pacific filling my ears, pen poised above paper,
I filled the first few lines and, stopped, self-doubt crept in my mind; my heart hadn’t allowed a successful
siege, but it settled itself in my fingers quietly, stealthily, hoping for my heart to surrender.

Then something wriggled or wrestled with a determined energy, the exhalation of a breath. It was a sturdy
spirit tested and tried, ignored and betrayed, nourished and reborn, while its vessel wrote one more word,
then one more line.

I may be ready to be grateful.

At the Thai Restaurant
by Bob Isaacson (’85)

At the Thai Restaurant

I order take out: When I gather up my bag of food
and sign the credit card slip,
Satay Chicken for an appetizer,
With peanut sauce and peppers in oil, I feel I must know.
Beef curry, white rice,
and, of course, Tom Ka Gai soup-- “Where is the little Buddha,
chicken, mushrooms, bamboo, all and why… the Hopi doll?”
sunken in rich coconut milk, I ask, awkwardly,
all medium spicy. oddly embarrassed,
feeling a fool in a foreign land.
“It will be 20 minutes,”
The girl ‘s eyes
they say,
so I leave my MasterCard for the first time
grow firm,
with the two smiling girls
at the front desk and then
and head back look straight as arrows
to the restroom into mine.
before a cup of tea.
But then,
I open the door just as suddenly,
to a small hallway her mouth
where it is quiet, breaks
into a beautiful, wide smile:
buffered from the Friday night
chatter of customers “Allthesame,”
and stacking of plates. she says,
so quickly, so softly,
The light is dimmer here. I hardly hear her.
And there it is, “Allthesame.”
as always,
the dollhouse shrine Later, I drive home,
on the floor, pitted against ten miles
of grinding,
lit by small colored lights,
ornate, glowing, angry commuter traffic.
the burning incense sticks
scenting the white plaster hallway. Headlights
turn on
On the way back, as the evening’s shadows
I lean down stretch west to east
at the small shrine, across the bean stubble,
as I always do, the bone-dry hills.
to greet the shiny Buddha
in his flowered temple. High above,
in the autumn sky,
Buddha is gone. blue darkens to indigo.
A small Hopi kachina doll,
straight arms outstretched, And, somewhere
stares back, up there,
its blank, masked face, a tiny Buddha and a kachina doll
frozen in rigid dance. inexplicably dance,
arm in arm,
I sit and have my tea, across the great vault
thinking all the while-- of vacant, utterly empty space—

a new constellation
The stiff kachina doll,
far from its stark, black mesa, of bright points
low adobe walls, empty desert. in an ancient sky.
The small Buddha, vanished.
South Coast Writing Project
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106

THE SCWRIP DIRECTORIAL STAFF:

Director: Carol Dixon, Ph.D.
Co-Director: Randi Browing
Co-Director: Rosemary Cabe
Co-Director: Joni Chancer
Co-Director: Jack Phreaner
Co-Director: Aline Shapiro
http://education.ucsb.edu/scwrip/

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