On Being Transformed

As a recently retired New York City public school teacher of over 30 years, I need to speak out at this time about how the New York City Writing Project (NYCWP) transformed my professional life and the lives of my students. I believe my story echoes that of millions of teachers across the country who have participated in the National Writing Project (NWP). Congress needs to hear our voices.

I often wonder whether I would have ever remained a public school teacher had I not been fortunate enough to participate in the NYCWP Summer Institute in 1978, shortly after my 5th year as an English teacher. That spring I was told by my supervisor that I was going to coordinate the school’s literary magazine, something I had neither requested nor wanted. In those days, when you prepared to be an English teacher, you took courses in English and American literature and speech and lesson planning – everything but how to teach writing. I had always been a good writer, but I knew nothing about composition instruction. How could I churn out a literary magazine? How could I inspire students to write? And where could I get help?

I applied for and was accepted to the very first Summer Invitational Institute that the New York City Writing Project offered. I was receiving a Fellowship – me! – And would be participating for 4 weeks after a draining year of teaching. I got far more than I bargained for that summer. We wrote every day and examined our process. We worked in writing response groups. We read theory and examined ideas in the light of what we were doing in schools. Each of the 25 participating teachers did a one hour demonstration of some aspect of his/her classroom practice and then we all reflected on what he or she had done: what worked for us, what questions it raised for us. Teachers so often work in isolation so putting one’s practice out there in public was quite intimidating. And yet, we all learned so much from each other. When the month ended, I not only had an entire new repertoire of instructional approaches, but also discovered a new set of colleagues, teachers who were not bitter or cynical but loved the profession and were eager to talk about teaching and share what they did.

Teaching changed for me. I returned to my Bronx high school fired-up. I asked for and got 5 composition classes specifically designed for students who were having difficulty passing the state competency exams in writing. Colleagues thought I was crazy, but for several years these were the only students with whom I worked. We wrote daily; they worked in writing groups and revised and edited their work. Students conquered a broad range of genres. We wrote monologues and dialogues and poetry and essay and memoir. We wrote on public issues and from personal experience. And, yes, most of them passed those competency exams. What’s more, other staff members – history and science and special education teachers – began to approach for me for help in how to make writing more engaging in their content areas, and I began to meet with interested teachers during lunch periods.

And then my teaching life expanded. Once a week, after my last period class, I traveled to a nearby school in the South Bronx or a Manhattan high school to teach an in-service course about the teaching of writing for the New York City Writing Project. A group of 20 teachers from all content areas met once a week after school and a colleague and I coordinated the work for 15 weeks each semester. This extra work was exhausting but exhilarating.  I discovered I could help peers who taught in other schools to find ways to make writing a more integral part of their instruction and a tool for supporting student learning in their disciplines.  These courses began to multiply. You see, the NYC Board of Education noticed the work, too, and asked the NYCWP to offer more in-service courses at more schools.    

In the ensuing years, I began to alternate regular teaching with consulting work. I coordinated an award winning writing-across-the-curriculum program for 10th graders in a high school in Queens and presented at local and national conferences. I also began to get opportunities through the NWP to write about some of this work so that other teacher-consultants at other sites around the country could learn from it. I started to participate in NWP activities, too. Two years ago, I was able to help teachers in a high school where I currently work to use writing and reading more effectively as a result of approaches I learned at a NWP conference on content area literacy.

Thanks to the NYCWP and the NWP, I was lucky enough to share my knowledge and experiences with teachers in many city high schools –  new and veteran teachers as well as English and content area teachers – to help them use writing and reading in their classrooms with more skill and confidence. I still do such work part-time. Together, as we plan, team-teach or discuss classroom practice, we build communities within schools that honor professionalism and support the highest standards for teaching and learning.  This is a rare and wonderful thing in city schools; it keeps teachers engaged and promotes student success.  

One last note. One of the 10th graders in that program in Queens back in the early 1990s became a high school English teacher. Having cherished her experience as a student in the Writing Project program, she now works with young colleagues and their students in Brooklyn, NY. She works under the aegis of the NYCWP. Our story goes on.

Ed Osterman
April 2011