New Jersey Teachers Share Best Practices On The National Stage

The articles of NWP@Rutgers Advanced Institute (AI) for Professional Writing participants Shannon Faulkner of Chatham High School, and Sara Bauer of the Morris Hills Regional District, were recently published in English Journal.



This past school year, The National Writing Project (NWP) at Rutgers University offered an Advanced Institute for Professional Writing to teachers interested in writing about the work they do in their classrooms. The Writing Institute took place in six-hour sessions over 3 days at the Graduate School of Education and provided resources and encouragement for 10 New Jersey teachers.



Faulkner, an English teacher at Chatham High School in Chatham, NJ, wrote "Signs of Life in the High School Classroom: Analyzing Popular Culture to Provide Student Choice in Analytical Writing. focusing on how students can engage their interests, use their creativity, and improve critical skills all at once by using examples from ordinary life and popular culture.



I know I never would have written the piece if I hadn't participated in the Advanced Institute, said Faulkner. I am deeply grateful for all that NWP@Rutgers did to help me to write, revise, and submit this piece.



Sara Bauer, Co-Director of NWP@Rutgers and a Gifted and Talented teacher for the Morris Hills Regional District focused on how to use software to make audio comments on students writing in order to help them better understand her feedback in her article "When I Stopped Writing on Their Papers.



Both articles were published in the November 2011 issue of English Journal.  The publication of the Secondary Section of National Council of Teachers of English, English Journal provides examples for middle school and high school English teachers to better engage students and use the latest technologies in their classrooms.



Learn more about NWP@Rutgers and the Advanced Institute by visiting nwprutgers.org.