Every Year I Try to Work Harder, Faster, & More Efficiently, But There's Always Detours, Ricochets, & Torpedos Needing to Be Dodged First

I was a day behind my plans, but I finally got to last edits of POW! Power of Words, the 10th publication of CWP-Fairfield featuring student and teacher writers. I am proud to say that these efforts have brought over 2,700 young people to publication and an additional 100 teachers. It is the National Writing Project way and there are so many to thank and celebrate to make it all possible. 

This year's work followed the brilliance of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, and the color scheme and drive for joy arrive from the incredible publication by Scholastic, Unearthing Joy. We used this in our teacher institute and borrowed Gholdy's cultural and historical framework to carry forward another summer of literacy labs and teacher institutes. 

Unique to this year, too, was the inclusion of young people from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who flew to the United States to participate in summer opportunities at Fairfield University. Their teachers from Loyola High School have many reasons to be applauded, because the young people who came were brilliant, focused, and enthusiastic to contribute their words - the Power of Words - to our collection.

Now I await the proofs, then it's production time. My hope is that the books will be in the hands of teachers and kids over the holiday break. 

A decade of urban, K-12 teaching in Kentucky under the brilliant reform (at the time) of portfolio assessment and supporting all writers, coupled well with scholarship learned and gained at Syracuse University, including the excellence of Dr. Marcelle Haddix, to bring the Writing Our Lives flavor to all the work we do. 

Today, I grade. I review articles, and I continue to prep for NCTE. Yesterday was a day of saying to myself, "Ta-da," as project went forward after months and months of work. Now onto the 11th year. Let's see what magic will come next.