“Our expertise as writing teachers is embedded in shared observation, reflection, invention, and research.”
REFLECTING WITH MY TRIBE
The paper Reflecting With My Tribe was delivered by Lorna Smith at the ARLE conference in Lisbon, June 2019. It was part of a seminar arranged by Professor Graham Parr of Monash University, Melbourne, NSW, Australia: L1 educators writing together in hybrid professional learning communities: International perspectives.
“Through their writing - and understanding that participation in a NWP group has contributed to their writing history - teachers identify a re-orientation of their pedagogy, noting a reciprocity between their writing and teaching.”
CONTEXT
In 2018 Simon and Jeni Smith met with Graham Parr, Professor at Monash University, Melbourne, NSW, to discuss a collaborative international project focused on teachers' writing histories and how these informed their teaching practices. Simon and Graham co-designed a writing workshop which was run 4 times - once at Monash in August 2018 and then three times in the UK - in Brighton, London and Bristol, Nov 2018- Jan 2019.
NWP(UK) is very grateful to the schools and universities which provided venues for this research, and for the teachers who gave up their Saturday mornings to participate in these workshops.
NWP(UK) is especially grateful that the teachers gave their permission for their words (written and oral) to be used as evidence in this research.
Simon, Lorna Smith (Bristol), Theresa Gooda (Sussex, Brighton) and Alison Jermak (Alperton, London) conducted these workshops and transcribed teachers' conversations. Then Simon and Lorna, analysed and discussed teachers' responses - oral and written - from the 3 UK writing workshops. Graham and his Monash team organised a seminar at the ARLE conference in Lisbon (June 2019) at which Lorna presented and edited and final version of this paper.