I Should Have Had Yesterday Declared National @Jessie_Early Day at @CWPFairfield @WritingProject Because She Was the Genre of Focus

Over the last couple of years I've been collaborating and working with Dr. Jessica Singer Early, Professor of English Education at Arizona State University and Director of Central Arizona Writing Project. Post Covid, she pulled me in on a project to co-edit an international journal about National Writing Project work (we are seeing strong evidence it will be out any day now) and, in this time, I was sent a draft of Next Generation Genres: Teaching  Writing for Civic and Academic Engagement. I actually had the honor of writing a pre-publication review of her new book, too, and I feel fortunate to know this text was coming our way a year ago.

Wola! Time has passed, the 2023 Invitational Leadership Institute is going forward as it does (beautifully), and yesterday Dr. Early was our guest! It was absolutely amazing to see her present on her passion project and to provide 15 K-16 teachers context for one of the books we're using this summer (btw, it works beautifully with Voice First by Sonya Huber, Writer's Notebook by Ralph Fletcher, Unearthing Joy by Gholdy Muhammad and POW! by last years young adult writers at CWP-Fairfield.

Because we'll be working with refugee and immigrant youth in a few weeks, we also read Lopez Lomong's "Writing for My Life" from Running for My Life. Discussing voice and genre as access to Western culture also tied nicely to Unearthing Joy, and questioning who has been given access to communicating in genres of power, especially in terms of literacy

What a blessing to have Dr. Early meet with the educators and answer their questions. Her approach is practical, theoretically sound, absolutely National Writing Project-oriented, and totally  district/classroom ready for wonderful PD.

Today is our Friday promenade, so students will be debuting their novel chapters with book covers and reader-theater scripts. Crandall, branched all over the place, will be on a paper work mission to catch up on the first week of instruction.

Next week, it's creativity galore, including Who Do You Think You Are? The College Essay and Other Narratives. The teachers are going to get poetic.

It  is the most incredible time of the year. I say it every summer....I wish I had professional documentarians here to capture it all. There's just too much excellence for daily blogposts and i-Phone photographs. It's the stunning blossom of joyful learning.