An Interview with Philadelphia Writing Project Director, Dr. Diane Waff

Posted by on January 30, 2014

By Liz Shriver and Dr. Diane Waff

On December 10th, two members of the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP), shared unique strategies for engaging elementary school parents in literacy at the K-16 University Partners meeting on Early Childhood Literacy. I interviewed Dr. Diane Waff, PhilWP Director and practice professor in reading, writing and literacy at the Penn Graduate School of Education, to learn more about how PhilWP serves teachers, builds partnerships and provides services to Philadelphia families.

The Philadelphia Writing Project is an urban site of the National Writing Project, which was started at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkley, in 1974, as a professional development network for K-16 teachers across disciplines. All NWP sites are connected to a local college or university. The mission of NWP is to share teaching and learning practices and promote leadership among member teachers. Currently, there are 200 NWP local sites that serve all 50 states. Locally, Phil WP is a growing network of over 700 teacher consultants who work in collaboration with peers in literacy, writing, teaching and learning across all disciplines and grades.

Q: When did you first become involved in the Philadelphia Writing Project?

A: I joined the Writing Project in 1991. Initially, I participated in the Philadelphia Writing Project’s Seminar in Teaching and Learning with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues from Olney High School. The seminar was part of a District-wide reform effort led by the Philadelphia Schools Collaborative.  Susan Lytle, PhilWP’s founder, led the seminar with a team of teachers and grad students from GSE.  Secondary teachers across grade and subject area were invited to attend. In the Seminar, we looked closely at our own practices and conducted inquiries into issues that emerged from our work in our classrooms, small learning communities and schools.  We brought in student work and discussed issues of common concern with our peers from other high schools. Our goal was to make our classrooms “sites of inquiry” and begin to collectively problem solve to address the needs of our diverse student population. I participated in the seminar for five years. During that time, Jolly Christman and Eva Gold from Research For Action worked with us to conduct school and classroom based inquiries and to measure the success of the Seminar.

After participating in the Seminar for several years, I became a Seminar Leader and PhilWP teacher consultant. I was able to coordinate the seminars that were so important to me as a teacher.  I later enrolled at the University of Penn and became the PhilWP scholar. Each year there is a PhilWP Scholar who receives funding to matriculate full time as a doctoral student at GSE. Our current scholar is Robert Rivera-Amazola, formerly a program officer in the Office of Multilingual programs and a technology teacher leader at the Willard School. His work, and that of many other teachers, is available on Digital IS, the online resource hub for the National Writing Project.

Q: What benefits do teachers see from their work at Phil WP?

A: Through PhilWP, teachers become national leaders. They have the opportunity to publish their work locally and nationally and become a part of the broader community of the National Writing Project. In Pennsylvania, there are eight writing project sites. Our members become leaders of other teacher networks and professional associations as well. For example, Alison Irwin, a PhilWP teacher consultant, is now the executive director of the PA Council of Teachers of English. In their applications to join PhilWP, teachers are asked how they take up leadership roles in their local school community.

Whether it is sharing with other teachers in their school or in the wider world, our members are positioned as leaders. They become principals, department heads, and join professional organizations and teacher networks like Teachers Lead Philly and Teacher Action Group (TAG). They present at local and national conferences and provide high quality professional development to peers across the city. The National Writing Project works hard to make the work of teachers and students visible beyond their local school community, giving teachers the opportunity to learn from other teachers through Digital IS and other forums. Digital IS provides teachers with an avenue for collaboration and knowledge exchange using multimedia representations of practice to support teacher development.

The teachers in PhilWP facilitate professional development all over the city for teachers in both charter and School District of Philadelphia schools. Our members have expertise from early literacy to high school across all content areas. Currently, we are developing a map to show where our members, including teachers and principals, are working. We would like to showcase the depth and reach of our community and encourage school leaders to call upon PhilWPers as a resource, tapping them to support initiatives both in and outside of school.

Q: Which organizations do you collaborate with most in Philadelphia?

A: Phil WP has many collaborative partnerships happening which provide unique programs and services to families and teachers. Phil WP has an excellent reputation for building partnerships that serve a wide range of content areas and age groups. Our goal is to be a vital presence in Philadelphia.

Right now we are the local affiliate for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards with the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership (PAEP) housed at the University of the Arts. We have over 400 student writing submissions this year. The work of our gold key winners is sent to New York for national adjudication. Our final adjudication was held on January 28th.  An upcoming event we are co-sponsoring with the Moonstone Arts Center and the American Museum of Jewish History is a free journal-writing workshop celebrating the life and work of Charlotte Forten (http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/charlotteforten/) Saturday, February 8th for secondary students, teachers and their families at the National Museum of American Jewish History. We also use unique resources available to teachers in Philadelphia. For example, in our summer seminar we are using a book that Dennis Creedon and School District of Philadelphia educators wrote which spotlight the city’s cultural resources. This book comes with an interactive CD and highlights arts organizations in neighborhoods across the city. We also use Apiary Magazine as a literary journal during Project Write, our summer institute for students. We encourage them to submit their work to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and many of them have had their pieces published in Apiary.  These resources are often underutilized by teachers.

Three years ago we partnered with the School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2) for a seminar series called The National After School Matters Initiative Practitioner Fellowship Program. For four years PhilWP collaborated with the Out of School Time Resource Center (OSTRC) and brought together OST professionals and teachers in a seminar to build an intellectual community focused on improving student learning in and out of schools. OST professionals and teachers focused on concerns about teaching and learning in their individual contexts and co-labored around ways to nurture good writers, learners and citizens. During this time, similar projects were happening in New York, Pittsburgh and Seattle. We had conferences and participated in online communities sharing ideas and ways of working. All the Philadelphia OST practitioners who participated were then invited to become members of the Philadelphia Writing Project.

We are currently facilitating an Arts Inquiry seminar in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Penn Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art and Independence National Historical Park. Teachers are visiting these sites and learning how to include the arts as an instructional focus and strategy in their classrooms. The Arts Seminar attempts to address the budget cuts, particularly in the arts that have left many schools without professional development that would support the integration of the arts.  We are also building a partnership with the Academy of Natural Sciences to develop innovative programs at the intersections of science and literacy.  This Intersections Project is supported by the National Science Foundation and in partnership with the National Writing Project and the Association of Science Technolgy Centers. Having a diversity of partners helps us leverage our work, and helps our teachers to gain access to new resources and learning opportunities.

Q: What are the main challenges Phil WP teachers face in their efforts to shape literacy in Philadelphia?

A: Through the current curriculum, students are not being nurtured to become good writers. The previous scripted programming in the city focuses predominantly on reading comprehension. I’m hoping that with the Common Core writing standards that there will be a shift to support students to become critical readers, writers, communicators and thinkers. More secondary students in Philadelphia will be able to thrive in college and in their careers if they experience a robust and challenging writing curriculum.

Q: In the PhilWP workshop on December 10th, we heard from Ms. Mattie Davis and Ms. Michele Bell, Phil WP teachers who led as series of literacy workshops for parents at W.D. Kelly Elementary School. The role of the community in enhancing literacy was very clear. Is this model growing? Could it scale up?

A: Phil WP has several programs that engage families and community members. With the Intersections program PhilWP will be conducting science literacy programs with the Academy of Natural Sciences that are open to the public that will strengthen science and literacy learning. We also host literature circles across the city that are open to the public. This spring we had a Walk for Literacy to raise funds for scholarships for students to attend Project Write, our summer writing camp for students and other family literacy programs like the Charlotte Forten journal writing workshop in February. Engaging parents and children together is work we like to do and we hope to continue to expand these programs in the future.

Q: The University of Pennsylvania coordinates PhilWP, why is college involvement part of the NWP model?

A: Every writing project site is housed within a university. It is useful for teachers, parents, and students to be linked to an institution like Penn. They gain access to a scholarly world of research and resources. The Reading/Writing/Literacy faculty are all involved in Phil WP. GSE faculty serve as guest presenters during our summer institute sessions, they work with many of the students in our writing programs, and many work in the local community.  The University also serves as a source of inspiration for writing and career exploration. During the After School Matters program, teachers and OST professionals came together on Penn’s campus and brainstormed ways to use the University as a resource in their work with students and their families. GSE has a strong commitment to bring the community, the local school system and Penn programs together to foster collegial learning and develop courses of action to address the needs of the local community. The Penn Partnership, which was led by Torch Lytle and is now under the leadership of Caroline Watts, is a wonderful example.  Caroline is working with the Netter Center, PhilWP local parent groups and civic organizations to support teaching and learning at the Lea School in West Philadelphia.

Q: How are Phil WP and the National Writing Project supported?

A: Funding for the network primarily comes from private foundations and government grants. The NWP hosts an annual spring meeting in Washington, DC to lobby representatives in Congress to support literacy education. We visit our representatives’ offices, share classroom successes, and talk about the importance of writing and the NWP. Federal support for the National Writing Project and other national literacy projects was cut from the federal budget in 2011 after 20 years of consistent funding. Despite the cuts, there are over 200 NWP sites and over 130,000 educators in our national network and we’re growing. There is a rigorous body of research that shows the impact of NWP programs. Here is Philadelphia, PhilWP is supported by foundation funding and local contracts with the School District of Philadelphia, charter schools and other organizations.

Q: What can we do to pave the way for new teachers in Philadelphia?

A: Time needs to be built within the school day for teachers to learn from and with each other. When teachers in Philadelphia visit each other’s classrooms, it gives them an opportunity to observe the expertise of a peer who is working in a similar situation. In the past, PhilWP worked in collaboration with the SDP to facilitate a cross visitation program. The writing project provided experienced teacher consultants who served as substitutes for teacher who visited colleagues classrooms to learn how to do running records, to observe writing workshop, to see a balanced literacy lesson. Teachers felt comfortable leaving their classrooms because they knew the substitutes were PhilWP teachers who would continue the work they were doing in their class.

Ultimately, joining a network like PhilWP can help teachers stay in the profession and in the School District. The network helps teachers connect to a local and national community that supports inquiry, celebrates diverse perspectives and supports teachers as leaders and professionals.

Q: How do teachers get connected to Phil WP? Are there any other community resources you’d recommend?

A: PhilWP is free to join. For 28 years people have been able to participate in PhilWP. Teachers participate in a range of learning experiences, everything from literature circles to participating in a summer institute or seminar series for course credit from the University of Pennsylvania. Teachers who want to learn more about PhilWP or the National Writing Project, can go to resources like Digital IS or the PhilWP website for a window into our community. Teachers can also request PhilWP to come to their school and provide information about the program or offer professional development. We are always open to new partnerships and welcome new members.  Teachers interested in joining PhilWP may apply to participate in our Invitational Summer Institute. Teachers can learn about the application process here: www.gse.upenn.edu/philwp/join