In the Company of Writers 2006

By Marshall Kitchens

In July 2006, teachers of writing came together to share their knowledge, experience and creative expression in language arts as participants in the Meadow Brook Writing Project at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Affiliated with the National Writing Project, the Meadow Brook Writing Project's 2006 Summer Institute provided these teachers with the opportunity to learn from each other and write together during a month of intensive professional development. In the Company of Writers 2006 is the wonderful anthology resulting from their collaboration. All participants, from elementary through college, returned to their classrooms in the fall, inspired and ready to pass on that inspiration to their students in order to help them become better writers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 10, 2007
• ISBN: 9781475904871

Marshall Kitchens

In the summer of 2002, teachers from the greater Detroit area came together to share their knowledge, experience, and creative expression in Language Arts and instruction, with an emphasis on writing, as fellows of the Meadow Brook Writing Project. In the Company of Writers 2002 is the result of their collaboration. All participants, from pre-kindergarten through university, returned to their classrooms in the fall, inspired as writers and ready to inspire their students to become writers.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

Editor’s Note: About the Cover…

Preface

Chapter 1

Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich

Chapter 2

Darlene Lloyd

Chapter 3

Susan Crill

Chapter 4

Mary Cox

Chapter 5

Regina Crittenden-Byas

Chapter 6

Karen Harry

Chapter 7

Matthew Ittig

Chapter 8

Brenda McGee

Chapter 9

Joy Moss

Chapter 10

Kim Radden

Chapter 11

Kristina Sobota

Chapter 12

Jennifer Sertyn

Chapter 13

John Callaghan

Chapter 14

Bruce Tosolt

Chapter 15

Mikki Zachary

Chapter 16

Jeanie Robertson

Chapter 17

Elizabeth Johnson

Acknowledgments 

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.

—William Butler Yeats

The Meadowbrook Writing Project Summer 2006 Writing Fellows would like to thank the following individuals, for without their contributions, our experience would not have been possible, let alone as powerful as it was.

Dr. Ron Sudol, whose dedication to the art of writing provides the spark and the flame to keep the program going.

John Callaghan, whose stamina and talent at finding the space between the logs gives us all something for which to aspire.

Mary Cox, whose laughter, guidance, and ability to give voice to the fire, is awe-inspiring.

Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich, whose abilities to fan not only our flames, but the flames of her students, to make them burn at their hottest, is incredible.

Catherine Haar, a most gracious hostess, for feeding our fires on the last day with an incredible array of delicacies and pearls of wisdom.

Marshall Kitchens, who brought us the technological tools to take our fires, spread them, and to look at them from all perspectives.

Kathleen Lawson, who, like the dragonfly, never stops working, and is always willing to provide whatever the fire needs, especially where this publication is concerned.

And to anyone not mentioned above, for your hard work stoking, editing, or helping us keep space between the logs, may your fires always keep you warm!

Editor’s Note: About the Cover… 

You might think it strange for a group of teachers who spent an intensive month of professional development together exploring the writer within to choose a fallen maple tree to represent their experience. You would probably expect that we would have selected something teacherly as a metaphor: a school bus, an apple, or possibly even a composition book. Those symbols seem both creative and positive, things that it seems our tree is not. But while this tree might appear to be dead or dying, it is actually surviving, and in doing so, it represents many of the powerful and compelling ideas that ran through our thoughts and took root.

Every part of that tree helped shape our writing during the 2006 Summer Institute. The roots connected us to who we are and who had come before. The sparse leaves striving to reach the sky, regardless of the forces that tried to prevent them from doing so, helped us to understand where we need to go as educators. The uprooted trunk that could one day become fuel for fire reminded us of the need for proper breathing space and sometimes just provided us a place to stop, open our journals and minds, and write. That tree gave us a lot.

—Bruce Tosolt, Editor

Preface 

By literal definition, the few words contained on this page come before the faces of the authors’ collective works found in this anthology. Faces that are behind the thoughts of those whose truths are perceived through each individual mind. Perceiving those thoughts is a difficult task when one considers the complexity of the minds of the participants of the National Writing Project’s Meadow Brook 2006 Summer Institute at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Out of our time together came thoughts of communing with nature, dealing with death and loss, expressing love and remembrances, and most of all, sharing common experiences. This small group of teachers from kindergarten through college, came together to exchange ideas, and to listen and learn through the words of their colleagues about this complicated world of educating writers we, as teachers, try to navigate on a daily basis.

If during the course of reading these works, you find a revelation of your own, a related experience, some insight into another’s world, or something that stirs you to positive action, we will have succeeded in imparting the enjoyment each of us carried with us as we put our thoughts into this book to share with you. As St. Paul wrote, Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. If in your dwellings, you come to a better place, remember you arrived there In the Company of Writers 2006.

—Susan Crill, Editor

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Chapter 1 

Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich 

Alphabetic Principle

Authors begin crafting dialogue

everywhere families gather.

Hoping inferred jabs

kick-off

laughter,

monologues,

notes of possible quotes,

revealing sermons.

Talk uncovers

virtues, whims, extreme yearnings Zoom in!

Thoughtful Alphabet

After breakfast

conversation diminishes.

Everyone

feels

guilty.

Her intense jealously

kills loves momentum.

Noting only past questions,

reiterations suggest

tarnished, unused variations …

without examination

yields

zero

Sonnet I

What if the girl recites a poem to him? She wants to play with fire, to take a chance. The form conspires; she will indulge the whim. Oh tended words ignite. Invite his glance. It builds. Will he know how to play along—To keep his balance in the breathing space? Tradition breaks the mood; it feels all wrong: A press of words unlike a real embrace, The feeling doused by rhythm just required. Let go of rules; extinguish this conceit. It’s more than erudition that’s desired, For even in the dark you hear hearts beat.

Her word game solved with little reverie. Line embers moved to mere periphery.

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Chapter 2 

Darlene Lloyd 

Grandpa!

On that walk along the rocky path of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, I was looking to make a connection to my literary side. I was not in search of my identity because I am pretty much comfortable with who I am. Some people spend their whole lives in conflict with self. I know that this can be rather distracting, as distracting as a tree in the meadows of Meadow Brook. But what I found on this walk could have been a part of my identity.

It was on a journey with my Oakland University Meadow Brook National Writing Project (NWP) colleagues that I was reminded from whence I came. The path we took that day was a defining moment of my life. On this journal writing-walk marathon, we encountered this enormous tree that reminded me of my birthplace. I couldn’t tell you what type of tree this was if my life depended on it. It empowered my spirit and embraced me with its presence. Had I not been a part of the NWP, I never would have discovered this tree nor have been able to write about my experience. Somehow, I felt an overwhelming connection to my grandfather.

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Maybe this was a sign from Granddad reminding me to keep our family name—double consonant, vowel, consonant, sometimes a vowel, consonant—in good standing wherever I went. I’m not like a rebel of the family, but I was always tempted to