Columbia program brings writing institute to Connecticut

Fitch High hosted first such session in state

Groton — On Wednesday afternoon, Leah Bragin Page stood in a classroom before 31 people and read “Fly Away Home,” a children’s book about a homeless father and son living in an airport and trying to remain unnoticed so they don’t get caught.

She was reading not to children, but to their teachers.

The teachers were divided — with half instructed to note evidence that the airport is a good place to live, and the other half to look for evidence that it is a bad place to live — and they had brief one-onone debates. They were then given four minutes to each silently write a “flash essay” taking the position that it’s a good place to live, a bad place, or one that is good sometimes and bad others.

These teachers were at Fitch High School this past week for the Connecticut Writing Institute, a professional development program of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University.

Of the 100 participating teachers, nine were from Groton Public Schools, while others came from school districts in Texas, California, Tennessee, Maryland, Oklahoma and other states. There were attendees who teach in places as far away as Bolivia, Kuwait and Vietnam.

This was the first time such a writing institute session was held in Connecticut and only the second time one was held outside of New York.

But Groton has been a project school district with the Teachers

College Reading and Writing Project for the past two years, a connection that enabled the institute to be held at Fitch High School.

In 2015, a $983,348 Department of Defense grant allowed Teachers College to bring the Writers Workshop program to K-8 teachers in Groton.

“I have been in classes three or four times now where the teacher says, ‘OK, it’s time to go to P.E.’ and they go, ‘Oh, no!’” Superintendent Michael Graner said of students. “They don’t want to put their pen down because they’re so engaged in writing.”

Second-grade teacher Alexandrea Martino said that the work generated by the students says it all, and that they have become much more confident writers. She was one of the nine Groton teachers at the Connecticut Writing Institute this past week.

Martino spoke highly of the weeklong program, saying she learned a lot about mini-lessons and how to give support to children who are struggling. She went to a lot of sessions geared toward grades 3-8 but found all the material transferable.

“The teachers they brought in are amazing,” Martino said. “They’re confident, they’re assuring, they can make you feel like everyone can be a strong writer.”

Melissa Shaffer said that unlike many other workshops she has attended, this one was “actually practical,” and she appreciated that instructors didn’t talk to the teachers like they were kids.

Shaffer had been working as a high school teacher in Florida but will start at an international school in Lehore, Pakistan, this year.

The four Teachers College Reading and Writing Project staff developers who presented at the Connecticut Writing Institute this week — Bragin Page, Samantha Barrett, Casey Maxwell and Lisa Corcoran — were all previously New York City teachers, except for Corcoran, who taught in Wethersfield.

Each day of the institute featured two sessions and a workshop, with four options for each session and workshop.

The workshop topics included using small groups and conferences to teach conventions, charts for students and teachers, and supporting an environment of independence and productivity.

Casey Maxwell discussed teaching writing as early as kindergarten, talking in one workshop about the importance of removing “scaffolds,” or extra steps and directions given to kids that don’t mirror how things are done in “real life.”

Assistant Superintendent Susan Austin expressed her excitement for the Connecticut Writing Institute as she welcomed teachers last Monday morning.

“The best thing that we as a district can provide for our students are the teachers that we hire,” she told them, “and the best thing that we can do for you, our teachers, is to provide you with the best professional development.”