OWP Teacher Consultants--
This was good news I couldn't wait until the
newsletter to pass on.
I took a couple of e-mails from Vickie Wilson and
turned them into an article:


School’s Determination To Stress Writing
Brings Giant Leap in Writing Scores

        In September, Vickie Wilson, fourth grade teacher at
Harvest Hills Elementary in Putnam City, wrote:

Dear Janis and the OWP,
        I wanted to let you know that we have the results of
the CRT scores in writing and we jumped from 68%
satisfactory and advanced to 98%.  Wow!!! Thank you
for the awesome training on the 6 + 1 Traits and I
hope to get a grant to have more inservices this year.
We are out of money in staff development, so I'm
going for grants.
        Thank you to your amazing teachers and for the
language of teaching writing.

Vickie Wilson and your friends at Harvest Hills
Elementary (Putnam City)


        Knowing that inservice alone could not have brought
about such dramatic results, Janis Cramer, Co-Director
of Inservice, asked Vickie what else might have helped
to bring about this rise in writing assessment scores.
        “We did several things to make this happen,” Wilson
explained.  “It has been a slow process.”

School In-Service

        Over the past two years, teachers have taken classes
beginning with the new analytical scoring on the state
writing assessment.  Then the following year, 2005-06,
Oklahoma Writing Project sent Melissa Benson to begin
an overview of the six analytical traits with us in
two 3-hour sessions.  At the beginning of 2006, we
followed her workshops up with Audra Plummer
continuing two more 3-hour inservices on the
individual traits.
        Some Harvest Hills teachers also attended OWP
workshops sponsored by the Putnam City district
throughout the year.

Writing Committee

        Teachers formed a writing committee and made trait
posters for every class in the building, from Pre-K to
fifth.  “Teachers began using the "language" of the
traits when speaking about our writing to our
students,” Wilson said.

Student Recognition

        Next teachers put a celebration of good writers in
place by
recognizing outstanding writing in grades 2 - 5 in a
once per month party called "Creative Composers.”  OWP
followed with an inservice on publishing in January
2006 with Lori Newmark, teaching many creative ways to
publish class books as well as individual books
written by students.

Study / Sharing meetings

        The library bought copies of the 6 + 1 Traits of
Writing by Ruth Culham for the upper and lower grade
teachers to read.  Several teachers followed through
and read the books.  Last year teachers began to have
a monthly sharing meeting after school for 20 minutes.
 “That was our opportunity for teachers to share
school improvement ideas for lessons that had worked
in their classrooms.  We had writing as one of our
goals, and lots of ideas came from the meeting.”

Praise for OWP

         “All of OWP presenters are top.  We have never been
let down,” Mrs. Wilson said.  “People from other
schools have noticed what we have done and are asking
questions.  I tell them about the OWP all the time.  I
hope that we can spread the word.  Keep up the great
work.”