One of my colleagues at the Denver site is working on
this project.  I
thought some of you may have teachers who would be
interested in
submitting.

Rick VanDeWeghe
Denver Writing Project


Creative non-fiction essays, 10-30 pages, on teaching
low-income
children in public schools. Teaching is broadly
defined as classroom
instruction, counseling, on-site administration,
nursing, cafeteria work,
coaching, etc. I want to hear from people engaged now,
or people who have
taught these children in the past, thus “No Child Left
Behind” may be a
theme in your argument or it may not be, or you may
choose to compare
teaching before and after the implementation of NCLB.
People who no
longer work in public schools are also welcome to
submit essays. Comparisons
of different kinds of schools, such as public v
private, schools with
mostly poor children v schools with mostly
middle-class or wealthy
children, as well as urban v rural or suburban, may
also be appropriate. My
primary criterion is good writing: prose that is
lively, passionate,
highly readable. I do not, at the moment, have a
particular political
agenda for the collection, but individual essays may
lean toward pole
 mic. On the other hand, essays may be primarily
descriptive and
idiosyncratic. The book is intended for a general
audience, so an academic
framework is not acceptable. A few references to other
published work is
fine, but by no means necessary. I will try for as
large a geographic
distribution as possible. Please send queries to
[log in to unmask] Four-page proposals or
completed essays
by May 1, 2005.