Volume 28 No.

2 Spring 2009
A Publication of the South Coast Writing Project
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara

POSTSCWRIP

Jack Phreaner, SCWriP Co-Founder:

Constant Friend in Changing Times
A familiar and always welcome face at Summer Institutes, Renewals, and other writing
project gatherings, Jack Phreaner has been co-director of the South Coast Writing Project since its
inception thirty years ago. He was a distinguished and well-loved English teacher for decades until
his retirement, has supervised student teachers in UCSB’s Teacher Education program, and co-
directed the Literature for Teachers Program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A presenter at conferences, seminars, and in-services too numerous to list, Jack’s unfaltering
dedication to SCWriP and to his students and colleagues is an inspiration to us all. He is pictured
above during a recent visit to the construction site of the building that will soon house SCWriP’s
new offices (story on page 6). Exciting changes loom ahead but we are grateful to Jack for his
steadying presence, his sanguine perspective, and the constancy of his friendship.
 From the Editor
One night as I lay in bed enduring a stretch of anxiety, I heard a sudden, steady
clicking sound. After a few moments the clicking quickened and became a high-pitched
rattling, disconcertingly near, and I fleetingly wondered if a rattlesnake had somehow
entered. Then the room began to vibrate, and the vibration grew to a rumbling and finally
a growl so deep that it was everywhere.

My husband woke up. “Rocket,” he whispered. Now I remembered: A Vandenberg

launch had been scheduled for the wee hours, some sort of weather satellite booster. I
jumped up and ran outside. I wanted to see its fiery path in the sky.

The sky was white with cloud and there was no visible trace of the launch, but the
growling vibration continued. The deck was wet and the air smelled green and sweet; the
night held wildness and life in its shadows, but everything was waiting and still. I stood
there listening for a long time, nightgowned and barefooted, until the shudder of space
noise receded into silence and the silence slid back to its own secret music. It seemed that
I was bearing witness to some vast and wondrous mystery that had been out there all
along.

And I knew something special had transpired, but I understood it more clearly
when I came upon these words in an essay by Orhan Pamuk: To sense that life is deeper
than we think it is, and the world more meaningful, do we have to wake in the middle of
the night to clattering windows, to wind blowing through a gap in the curtains, and the
sounds of thunder?

Sometimes I suppose we do. But once glimpsed, it is an awareness to hang onto. In

these days of change and stress and constant calamity it is easy to feel buffeted about and
disoriented. Let us remember, as poets do, that life is deeper than we think, and more
precious and ephemeral; let us strive to be fully present.

As the South Coast Writing Project moves into a new office and a new chapter in
our history, we acknowledge all of the comrades and colleagues who have traveled with
us thus far -- in particular, our steadfast friend Jack Phreaner, pictured on the cover of this
edition, and our intrepid leader Sheridan Blau, who is about to set out on a different
course, but we’ll let him tell you about it, as he does on page 4.

We extend a special thank you as well to the teacher-writers who contributed to

this Spring edition of PostSCWriP. From news and professional advice to poetry and
memoir, these are folks who pay attention, whether the windows are clattering or not.

Cynthia Carbone Ward (’01) stillamazed.typepad.com

In This Issue…
Jack Phreaner: Constant Friend 1
Editor’s Message 2
Words, Barry Spacks, Poet-in-Residence 3
Letter from Sheridan Blau 4
We’re Packing Up Those Memories 6
Technology Update, Terie Cota, Linda Sparkhul, Mary Lourdes Silva 7
Summer Institute 2009 7
Bulletin Board: SCWriP Announcements 8
iChat, uChat, wiiWrite: Meditation on Collaboration
Amy Christensen, Amy McMillan, Erin Powers 9
Halls of Power Into Haiku: NWP Spring Meeting, Cynthia Carbone Ward 12
Winds, Gaylene Croker 14
Untitled, Maria Nodarse 16
Out There; Harbor, Santa Barbara, Robert Isaacson 18
Of the Happy Ending, Gabriel Arquilevich 19
Last Poem In the World, Robert Isaacson 19
Young Writers’ Camp, Aline Shapiro 20

Words
by Barry Spacks

I never learned a merchant's trade

but dwelt instead as a favored guest

in the slow house of the words.

My laboring father lugged sacks of potatoes,

banana stalks heaved on either shoulder,

napped at the "Y," owned no car;

set me to shelling lima beans

from rotting pods, spoke to me

in all his hard life

maybe three or four times.

The children of workers, urged to get A's,

finish school with ink-stained fingers,

an early sensitivity lost,

those weekend days when I worked at our fruit store:

easeful melons, gorgeous eggplant,

before the words words words.

 A Letter from Sheridan Blau

Dear Colleagues,
This summer we will conduct our 31st SCWriP Summer Institute. Our first was in the summer of
1979, which makes this year our Project's 30th year, and my 30th year as its director. When I
started our Project in 1979 (with the help of Jack Phreaner, Stephen Marcus and, Carol Dixon), I had
already taught for nineteen years. I began teaching in 1960 as a high school English teacher in my
hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. So I have been teaching now for 49 years, almost half a century.

Reflecting on that span of years, I consider my nineteenth year in

So I have been teaching, the year I began to work with the teachers of our Project, as
the year of my entrance into professional maturity. It marked the end of
teaching now my professional apprenticeship and the beginning of a new and more
professional life as a teacher and teacher-educator, becoming a
for 49 years, contributor to a professional community of specialists in the teaching of
almost half a writing and the education of teachers of English and writing. I didn't just
join a community of 25 teachers who came together at UCSB to
century. inaugurate the South Coast Writing Project, but I joined a national
community of teachers who were creating a national movement that
would change the way writing was understood and taught in our
nation's schools and, just as importantly, change how teachers conceived of themselves as
professionals. At the same time, we were changing the way that the profession of teaching
conceived of professional development and teacher-leadership, and the role of classroom teachers
as sources of knowledge and resources for the professional development of their colleagues.

I know that many of the teacher-consultants of our Project and of every Project in the NWP network
feel exactly as I do about how the writing project transformed our professional lives. Yet (perhaps
like every enchanted lover) I can't imagine how anyone can possibly feel as grateful as I do for the
many blessings the Writing Project has bestowed on me and for the profound changes it has
wrought in my work and life as a teacher and scholar and professional leader. Insofar as my
academic life has been a success -- marked by honors, and publications, and awards, and public
recognition, and academic positions -- I owe that success largely to opportunities granted to me by
my role and work in the Writing Project and to what I have learned over the years from and with all
of you.

But I am now 70 years old. And for the past year and a half
I have been on-leave from UCSB to serve as a Visiting I will be no more than
Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University,
leaving the amazing Rosemary Cabe to take charge of our
an email message or a
Project, while she also serves in national leadership roles phone call away. You
for the NWP. But I have loved living in New York, where I
feel I am starting another kind of new professional and will remain with me in
personal life, and where -- because of what I have learned my heart and thoughts.
and accomplished, through the advantages afforded me by
my work in the Writing Project-- I have now been asked to
stay on as a long-term member of the Teachers College
faculty in English education. So, having thought for some years already that I was coming to a point
where I could serve our Project best by retiring and finding a younger and more innovative
successor to serve as co-director with Rosemary, I have finally taken the difficult step of formally
announcing my intention to retire from UCSB and from my position as SCWriP Director at the end
of this coming summer. I shall thereafter be Professor of English and Education Emeritus and
Director Emeritus of SCWriP at UCSB. And I shall live in New York (near my children and
grandchildren and many of my relatives and oldest and dearest friends) and serve as a senior
member of the faculty in English education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

I will not abandon our Writing Project, however. I'll direct the Summer Institute of 2009 and
continue to perform the duties of director as needed (to write grant proposals, for example) during
the coming year, until we have a new co-director in place to work with the indispensable and
brilliant Rosemary and our outstanding team of SCWriP teacher-leaders. And, of course, I'll be no
more than an email message or a phone call away from any and all of you who will remain with me
in my heart and thoughts as my dear colleagues and teachers and friends, who are already known
by name and talent and special teaching practice from the stories I ceaselessly tell about our Project
and about all of you to my new colleagues and students in New York.

In the meantime, I'll hope to see all of you at our Spring 2009 Renewal Meeting in Ventura (at the
Clock Tower Inn on May 15) and at some time during this coming Summer Institute on the UCSB
campus.

Faithfully,

Sheridan

Editor’s Note: Sheridan is well known for his outstanding scholarly work, but all of us at
SCWriP who have had the privilege of working with him know that the important thing
about Sheridan is his spirit. His enthusiasm is legendary, and he has a beautiful way of
seeing (and thereby eliciting) the best in everyone. Throughout his long career he has
managed somehow to sustain an ongoing sense of surprise and wonder, often asserting that
he learns more from his work as a teacher than his students could ever learn from him, and
that tells you something right there. Join us at the Cliff House on July 7, 2009 to celebrate
Sheridan, reminisce together, and usher in a new chapter with friends and colleagues.
 We’re Packing Up Those Memories and Moving Down the Road

Co-Director Rosemary Cabe and Office Manager Dionne Van Meter don goggles and hard hats for a tour of the new facility.

Next time you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and take a last sentimental look at the familiar offices
above the Arts and Lectures Ticket office, modest headquarters of the South Coast Writing Project
since sometime in the 1980s. In August we will be relocating to the spanking new Education and
Social Science Building (ESSB) across from Robertson Gym just east of the intersection of Ocean and
El Colegio Roads. The ESSB will consist of three separate structures totaling more than 200,000
square feet and housing various departments and programs, including the Gevirtz School of
Education currently located in Phelps Hall, and the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and
New Media, which will encompass the 300-seat state-of-the-art Pollock Theater.

The site is impressive

but still under
construction, and
during a quick preview
tour led by Assistant
Dean Arlis Markel it
took quite a bit of
imagination to picture
the empty rooms along
a stark corridor
eventually becoming
our base. In a way,
though, the move will
mark the transition
from one era to another, and we think some ceremony is in order. We have reserved the Cliff House
on July 7, 2009 to say good-bye to the old and envision the new. Mark your calendars. Join us for a
potluck dinner, reminiscing, celebration, and maybe even a moving sale. Stay tuned for more plans
as they emerge. What is vital is that you join us.
 On the Lookout for the Write Tech?

Although we have not yet figured out how to share tasty deli food via web conference, Jon
Margerum-Leys (’94), who lives in Michigan and is an Associate Professor of Education at Eastern
Michigan University, is present at our SCWriP Technology Committee meetings in every other
important way. Recently, we gathered again to work out the details of this summer’s technology
offerings. Jon is just one of our ten enthusiastic committee members, and he will be joining us in
person this summer as one of our presenters.

Would you value an opportunity to come together with others who are interested in
conversation and thinking around the use of technology as it supports and impacts writing? We are
happy to announce that July 27th through July 30th are the dates for our four-day Advanced
Technology Institute, “The Write Tech.” Many thanks to those of you who responded to our survey
regarding your interests and needs in the area of
technology integration. Based on that feedback, such
topics as the use of word processing tools to enhance
collaboration and editing; podcasting; and a technology
“round table”; as well as other scintillating topics will be
offered to our fellows.

Watch for further information about how to

register for the Institute, and for more details on its focus.
We can’t wait, and hope you are equally excited!

Your Trusty Technology Committee

2009 Summer Institute: A Remarkable Group Is Coming on Board

Our 2009 Summer Institute promises to be an especially memorable one. This will be the
last Institute that meets in Phelps Hall and the last one with Sheridan at the helm, so it already has a
built-in special significance. But its 23 dynamic participants would make for a notable assemblage
under any circumstances. There will be eighteen women and five men representing five different
ethnicities and ranging in teaching experience from three years to 26. Four have been teaching for
nineteen years or longer, and the average number of years of teaching experience for the group is
nine. These teachers will be joining us from Santa Ynez, Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Lompoc,
Bakersfield, UCSB, Goleta, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Camarillo, and one from as far away as South
Africa. We are pleased to welcome this diverse, enthusiastic, and talented group into the SCWriP
community.
 The Bulletin Board

Chella Courington, (‘03), completes her MFA in Poetry at New England College in July 2009. Her
work this year has been published in the journals The Griffin, Poemeleon, Iguana Review, and
wicked alice, and in the anthologies Not a Muse and Women. Period.

Santa Barbara Community College is once again holding its intensive summer course in Teaching
English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The course runs five hours a day, five days a week for six
weeks during SBCC summer session. Students who successfully complete the course receive a
departmental certificate in TEFL, which is useful in taking first steps in the field. Interested parties
should contact Lou Spaventa (’01) at spaventl@sbcc.edu.

Lou Spaventa (’01 has also been writing a bimonthly column called "The Heart of the Matter" for an
on-line journal, Humanising Language Teaching, out of the UK: www.hltmag.co.uk

Val Hobbs (’81) has won yet another well-deserved recognition: this time, the California Young
Readers Award (intermediate category) for her book Sheep.

The Natonal Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has declared October 20, 2009 as America’s
National Day on Writing. Its purpose is to encourage writing and explore and celebrate its integral
role in our lives. Beginning in the spring of 2009, and that means now, everyone—yes, everyone—is
invited to submit a piece of writing for a soon-to-be-unveiled National Gallery of Writing website.
For more information, go to http://www.ncte.org/action/dayon writing.

If you belong to a writing group in Ventura County that would welcome more members, please
contact Maria Nodarse (’01) at mnodarse@roadrunner.com.

SCWriP’s four-day Advanced Technology Institute, “The Write Tech”, will be held July 27th through
July 30th. Additional information and registration procedures will be announced soon.

Speaking of technology, check out our terrific website: http://www.education.ucsb.edu/scwrip/

If you want to peruse or respond to PostSCWrip online, simply click on "Publications" at the left
hand side, then click on PostSCwriP, and then click on "Volume 25-Present".

Our Spring Renewal on May 15, 2009 will feature Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Assistant Professor of
English at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Her workshop will focus on culturally
responsive methods of teaching in language arts classrooms with diverse populations of students.

Finally, save this date: July 7, 2009, 4 p.m., for a very special SCWriP pot luck and gathering at the
Cliff House. Stay tuned for further details.
 iChat, uChat, WiiWrite:
A Meditation on the Collaborative Process of Three Presenters
by
Amy Christensen (’08) La Colina Junior High School English Teacher
Amy McMillan (’06) Goleta Valley Junior High School English Teacher
and Erin Powers (’01) UCLA Professional Learning Partner

Collaboration: Erin Powers, Amy McMillan, and Amy Christensen and their trusty Macs.

Teachers love to talk. And so do our students. We believe there is a constant tension
between teachers and students and our inherent need to talk. In a classroom, the trick is to get
students to talk about what they are learning instead of focusing on the latest social news (although
we know these topics are a natural part of group development). When the three of us were asked to
do a presentation at the California Association of Teachers of English (CATE) conference on behalf
of SCWriP, we decided to focus on this very topic. We have seen in our teaching practices that
when students are given the opportunity to talk - and the tools to have an academic discussion -
they produce higher quality work and experience deeper, more relevant learning. We planned to
share and demonstrate the ways that we teach students to speak and respond to one another in a
discussion, including the following: SLANT (Sit up, Lean forward, Ask questions, Nod your head,
Thank your partner), sentence frames, vocabulary banks, and cognitive strategies. While these
behaviors are learned at home by some students, others need explicit instruction and modeling
about how to engage in a conversation. All of these tools contribute to the constructivist classrooms
that we strive to create.

We had several months to prepare for our conference and we were excited about the
opportunity to collaborate. The three of us had worked together previously at Santa Barbara Junior
High, and during those years we spent countless hours talking about teaching, developing lessons,
and sharing ideas. Now, at three different schools in two different cities, we rarely get to work
together, and we missed the convenient collaborative process that we’d honed at our former school.
To prepare for CATE, we met in person on three different Saturday afternoons over the course of two
months, taking turns driving to and from Los Angeles, where Erin currently lives. As a result of our
meetings, each of us settled on one best practice to present. We also decided use the California
English-Language Arts standard requiring students to find themes in texts as a starting point and to
use an excerpt from Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. We wanted to
demonstrate how students can use conversation as a means to discover themes on their own. Amy
Christensen has experienced success with the Grand Conversation, an activity in which students
each speak for one minute about something they’ve read and then respond to one another about
what they heard. Amy McMillan decided to use Carol Booth Olsen’s cognitive strategies and
sentence frames as discussion starters for students to
We believe that the more analyze classroom texts. To tie it all together, Erin
students talk to each other Powers showed how she uses the activity Give One Get
using the language of the One, which encourages students to share and revise their
discipline, the more equipped thesis statements with each other before drafting.
they are to write in the same One might assume that because we have such a
manner. strong history of collaboration and also maintain
personal friendships with one another, this presentation
should have been a simple process to develop. At our first meeting, we discovered something
different. Instead of throwing it together in a few hours, we had to start from the beginning, and we
forced ourselves to articulate why we use the particular strategies that we use. This dialogue became
one of the most valuable aspects of our planning process. In fact, the presentation would not have
happened had we not spent several hours talking about why we do what we do.

All of us require our students to talk on a daily basis and we teach students how to listen to
each other, but we teachers rarely verbalize, explicitly, why we are doing so. In discussing our
presentation for CATE, the three of us reaffirmed the value of teaching students academic language
and the procedures necessary for effective classroom discussions. We believe that the more
students talk to each other using the language of the discipline, the more equipped they are to write
in the same manner. Academic talk breeds academic thinking and writing.

We realized that many teachers are somewhat reticent

about using precious classroom minutes to allow students to For the three of us, our own
chat. (Could this simply mirror the fact that schools are
generally not structured to include time for teachers to talk to
process of dialogue,
one another?) For a classroom teacher, there are several discussion, and writing
challenges to consider. Letting students talk in pairs or small collaboratively empowered
groups is time consuming, noisy, and risky because the us to continue and to have
teachers must relinquish some control. In spite of this, we had the confidence to share our
seen how transformative good student discussions could be in
our classrooms. We concluded that we needed to have explicit
ideas with the other
reasons to offer our teacher audience at CATE, justifying taking teachers.
the time for classroom talk. Pausing our initial presentation
planning, the three of us sat down and created a brainstorm about why we believe classroom talk is
important. The following list, based on our personal teaching experiences and on research, turned
out to be more extensive and powerful than we anticipated:

• Our ultimate goal is to create proficient, independent communicators.

• Communication is an essential life skill.
• Discussion is important to writing and learning.
• We (teachers and students) learn from one another.
• It is more natural to talk than to write.
• If writers make personnel connections before drafting, the writing is better. Discussion helps
to make these connections.
• When students learn from each other, they avoid simply parroting the teacher’s ideas.
 • Self-discovery is a more effective and long-lasting way to learn than simply listening to a
teacher lecture.
• Talking creates buy-in and ownership among student writers.
• Talking about a concept to another person makes it more likely to be memorable.
• Discussion helps students clarify readings for one another.
• Students come up with more ideas and themes through talking and therefore have more to
write.
• Group discussions allow students to consider multiple perspectives.
• Talking helps writers overcome the fear of the blank page.
• Talking to other people in respectful ways fosters lower affective filters and increases active
learning.

After we saw what we wrote down, we knew we were on the right track and the rest of our
planning continued smoothly. For the three of us, our own process of dialogue, discussion, and
writing collaboratively empowered us to continue and to have the confidence to share our ideas
with the other teachers at CATE. Interestingly, we realized that our presentation was better because
we were able to talk to each other in the same way we ask our students to do. We felt that our
ideas were valued, our experiences were validated, and we learned from one another, leaving each
meeting excited about teaching. Our own experience assures us that the same thing happens with
students. Although giving students time to talk to each other can feel haphazard or irresponsible
sometimes, it increases their capacity for scholarly thought, effective writing, and future success.

The South Coast Writing Project

in Partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art presents:
Joni Chancer’s new work on Visible Thinking in the Classroom – with a Focus
on the Seeing/Writing Connection in K-12 Classrooms

Visible Thinking maximizes the enormous potential that any teacher can tap
into. Our students are exposed to images hundreds of times a day, yet they
glance at, rather than think about, the images that they are constantly exposed
to in our technology-centered culture.

Visible Thinking invites our students to notice the details, connect ideas,
discover what is important, ask questions, create hypotheses, and support their
ideas with evidence.

Visible Thinking Strategies (VTS) are for everyone, and especially serve GATE
students and English Language Learners. The discussions help students become
generative thinkers and synthesizers of information and input.

One of the greatest strengths of Visible Thinking is the power to match abstract
ideas to concrete referents, and to help children find the language that supports
abstract thought.

June 23-25, 2009, 8:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

at UCSB Cliff House and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Registration fee: $150, payable to UC Regents.

2 quarter units of UCSB credit will be available.
For registration form and additional information,
contact the SCWriP office.

“I want people to know how excited I am, and that this is the best thing to
come along (I feel) in years and years. It has transformed and re-ignited my
teaching!” Joni Chancer
 Through the Halls of Power and Into Haiku
by Cynthia Carbone Ward (’01)

Over 400 educators converged in Washington, D.C. in early April for the Spring Meeting of
the National Writing Project. Our primary purpose was to urge members of Congress to continue to
fund the NWP, with a requested appropriation of 30 million dollars for fiscal year 2010, but it was
also an opportunity for colleagues from all over the United States to meet, share ideas, and inspire
one another in the way that dedicated teachers do. Rosemary Cabe, Jan Brown and I had the
privilege of participating on behalf of our site, and I returned with a new awareness of the
extraordinary network of which the South Coast Writing Project is a part.

I had not realized, for example, that there are over I was unaware how much
200 university-based NWP sites in all fifty states reaching persuasion, education, and
more than 100,000 individual educators annually, and that
in California alone, there are 883 programs at 17 different
persistent hard work goes
sites. I knew intuitively that we do good things, but now I on behind the scenes to
can point out that nine studies from 2004 to 2007 across ensure that those dollars
sites in diverse geographic regions of the United States
show statistically significant gains in writing performance keep coming.
for students whose teachers participated in NWP programs,
and that independent national scorings of student writing reveal that NWP student improvement
outpaces that of students in comparison groups. I had not understood the extent to which federal
funding of NWP represents an investment (as opposed to an expenditure), for each dollar generates
additional local funds and helps to sustain ongoing programs of proven effectiveness, touching lives
in a far-reaching ripple effect. Finally, I was unaware how much persuasion, education, and
persistent hard work goes on behind the scenes to ensure that the dollars keep coming. Next time I
get one of those emails from the SCWriP office urging us to contact our Congressional
representatives and ask them to support the NWP appropriation, I’ll give it the priority it deserves.

On the first morning, we gathered in the historical

Caucus Room of the Cannon House Office Building. An
imposing example of Beaux-Arts architecture, the building is
connected to the Capitol by underground passages, and its
Caucus Room has been the scene of much melodrama and
ceremony since its completion in 1908. In this chandeliered
room, hearings were held in 1912 to investigate the sinking of
the Titanic, Joseph McCarthy infamously railed against alleged
Communist influence in 1954, and witnesses were grilled
about the Watergate scandal in 1973. But today’s was a peaceable assemblage. NWP Executive
Director Sharon Washington welcomed us, Congressman Todd Russell Platts and other supporters
encouraged our efforts, and a representative of a research group provided an independent
perspective on the work and impacts of the NWP. Feeling reinforced and motivated, we dispersed
into the halls of Congress to meet with our local legislators or their staff, either to thank them for
their support (as in the case of Lois Capps) or help them to better understand the benefits of the
project (as with Elton Gallegly).

Meanwhile, Washington was noisy with the din of traffic and sirens, and the broad streets
bustled with throngs of tourists and school groups and locals in suits who strode by with cell phones
at their ears, but the air was warm and fragrant with bloom. The branches of the blossomed trees
were delicately etched against a luminous silver sky that now and then rained lightly upon us. In the
uncommitted spaces between business, Jan and I paid homage to a few monuments and landmarks,
feeling patriotic, never cynical, but we’re teachers, after all. We got passes to see the Senate in
session, shedding our purses and electronics at security, briefly becoming unfettered nobodies (how
odd it feels to be schlepping nothing) for balcony seats in a theater of power where Senators in
living color were debating and voting on budget amendments. It was amazing to realize from that
vantage point how much influence is held by so few, but it was exciting to bear witness and feel
connected to it as citizens.
It was amazing to
Responsible citizenship in a global environment was in fact the realize how much
topic of the keynote speech by Jacqueline Jones Royster. A professor of
English at Ohio State University and author of several books, Royster influence is held by
emphasized the connection between literacy and the public good. She so few, but exciting
spoke of language and expression as being at the very core of who we are,
and pointed out that writing is not just a subject, but the very currency by
to bear witness and
which we manage our lives and relationships. She spoke of the value of feel connected to it
hope, the reality of intervention and redemption, and the lessons of history as citizens.
that have proven doubters wrong and those with faith right. Teachers, she
said, are both enablers of stability and agents of change, but we must have
compassion and fortitude, and we must be relentless in our effort and belief.

It was an inspiring talk, and I felt newly energized as we broke up into various roundtable
discussions. In one, we revisited the mission statement of the NWP, tweaking the language a bit to
better reflect its purpose and essence. The words and phrases I heard floating around the room were
quite revealing: a unique network, writing, sharing, rethinking, training, renewal, linking, mentoring,
gathering, collaboration, partnerships, infrastructure, transformative, long-term professional growth,
organic adaptation of ideas, inquiry, effectiveness, good local work informing a national arena, the
place of teachers, a home base in which to dream in collaboration with colleagues and the support
to bring those dreams to fruition…you get the picture. And when you put optimistic and relentless
teachers together, you do feel an outrageous sense of hope, even in a time that is strained and
stressed and sometimes downright scary. Outside it was snowing pink petals beneath the silver sky
and I was summoned by the fragrance of hyacinth to step into a haiku and inhale springtime.

Pictured below: Jan Brown, Cynthia Carbone Ward, Sheridan Blau, and Rosemary Cabe
 Winds
by Gaylene Croker (’07)

"Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your
skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study
their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."
Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"

For four days now we here in Southern California have been dealing
I became consumed with these ninety-degree Santa Ana winds, and let me tell you, hide the
with digging through knives, my people. Not only are these winds wreaking havoc with the
the mound and wildfires that are occurring all around us, causing death and
collecting different destruction, they are scrambling our brains and rewiring our collective
nervous system. The only good thing about these winds is that you can
sized bottles and spend much less time on a hairdo, since you can blame a disheveled
lining them up, look on the wind and everyone will believe you.
creating families.
Now since I hail from Kansas, not exactly a "no-wind" area, you would
think that I could handle these Santa Anas, but in Kansas the winds are not nearly as bad. "Oh?" you
say. "What about those tornadoes?" It's true, we do have winds associated with tornadoes, but when
they do come in the form of a tornado, they come, they blow, they destroy (or not) and then they
go. They don't hang around for days and days and days. Tornadoes are the visit from the out-of-
town bad in-laws; Santa Anas are the in-town bad in-laws. Tornadoes are the hand slammed in the
car door; Santa Anas are the leg ripped off by rabid dogs. Tornadoes are the twenty-four hour flu;
Santa Anas are the flaming hemorrhoids.

When I was eight years old one of my favorite places to hang out
on the farm was back of the chicken house. It was a low building The pickle jar father
that had a steep corrugated tin roof. The back area was the was sturdy and totally in
second stopping place for the cans and bottles from our love with the slender
household that would eventually make their way back to the and lovely Wishbone
dump by the creek. (Breathe deep, my environmentalist friends.) salad dressing mother.
Since the wind and the rain had done their jobs, this plethora of
cans and bottles was fairly clean. A brilliantly creative child, at
one point I became consumed with digging through this mound and collecting different sized
bottles and lining them up, creating families. The pickle jar father was sturdy and totally in love with
the slender and lovely Wishbone salad dressing mother. The maraschino cherry bottle baby sat
beside her older brother the mayonnaise jar. Grandfather Peanut Butter and the Grandmother Jelly
came to visit quite often, and they would bring lanky, but socially awkward Cousin Catsup. Soon
there was a neighborhood forming and it was a happy day for all when the family with the
Campbell tomato soup triplets moved in. Even Uncle Butternut Coffee (nicknamed "Rusty" for his
appearance) was happy there beside the Hormel brothers. Once the neighborhood was in shape, I
began to scout for boxes. I had big plans for Main Street.

It was on a windy day when I went out back of the chicken house to begin construction on the
neighborhood school that Mrs. Butterworth was going to take charge of. (OK, I admit it, I had used
extra syrup on the pancakes for days, just so I could justify bring in Mrs. Butterworth from the house
to be the teacher.) I fought the steady wind all the way to the chicken house, and found my
neighborhood intact. In fact, in back of the chicken house turned out to be the perfect place to hide
out from the wind that was whipping over the fields.
Since Mrs. Butterworth was eager to get started and meet all the kids, I set
about the work at hand, finding the perfect orange juice can to be an
The metaphorical
orphan who would happily live at the school and help the other children chickens in our
as they studied her message to "concentrate" written across her side. The lives are up there,
wind howling around the corners of the building was a familiar sound, and we know it.
but I heard an additional sound that day, a slight scratching noise every
so often. I tried to ignore it, but I kept hearing it--sometimes a short peep-
like "stritch," sometimes a longer "striiiiiittttcccchh." I tried to place the sound. It was coming from
above me, so I went investigate. I went far enough back until I saw them: three dead chickens in
various states of decomposition on the slanted roof, one about three feet from the edge of the roof
above where I was building. Apparently, my father had flung them up there to avoid attracting
coyotes.

Well, what would you have done? I set back to my work temporarily, trying to ignore the danger
from above, but it was not the same. I heard the scratching sound, the yellow talons on the
corrugated roof. The absolute horror of even the possibility a half-decomposed chicken falling upon
me caused a knot in my stomach and the feeling of apprehension overwhelmed me. I was jittery
and tense. I abandoned my project. There would be no school, no park, no church and hence, even
though they were perfect for one another, no wedding for the earnest Mr. Pork and Beans and
delicate Miss Vienna Sausage.

Decades later, these current winds blow around me and I see how they make us all edgy and
nervous. The wind stirs up things, pushes us around. We hear the scritching of the waxy yellow
talons on the roof above us. The metaphorical chickens in our lives are up there, and we know it.
After the winds go away, we will breathe easier and get back to our normal routines. Then, one day,
out of the blue, the winds of nervous anticipation come whipping up unexpectedly in our lives. We
hear about the company layoffs. We get that call that a parent is in the hospital. We hear that tone
in the voice of a friend. We all walk a little hunched over then, anticipating nervously. Waiting,
waiting, we pray that the winds are gentle and that this time the chickens do not fall.

Pictured above: a girl in the wind. (It’s not Gaylene.)

Want more fun? Read Gaylene Croker’s blog at http://bossybetty.blogspot.com/

 Chapter 1: Excerpted from an Untitled Book in Progress
by Maria Nodarse (’01)

The author and her family, from left to right: her brother Alfredo; her mother Agueda Perez de Nodarse; her
brother Lorenzo, Jr. (to the rear); Maria de los Angeles herself; and her father Lorenzo Nodarse, Sr.

A smudgy glass wall and a revolution kept Belen away from me. Black as onyx, she stood
out in the mostly white crowd crammed behind the glass divide at Rancho Boyeros Airport, on the
southern outskirts of Havana. She was wearing her Sunday best, a plaid dress adorned with a white
collar. Her short hair had been straightened with a hot comb and was tucked under a black fish net.
A gold bracelet graced her wrist, and golden loops dangled from her ears, jewelry she had bought
with her hard-earned money in lengthy installments. Belen, Spanish for Bethlehem. I wanted to rest
my head on her breasts -- two mountainous gifts of flesh, a rivulet of sweat running between them. I
knew she would always remember what I said at that moment, so I told her, “Belen, yo me quiero
quedar contigo.” “I want to stay with you.” Then louder, as if the pitch of my voice could alter my
fate, I added, “Volvemos pronto, Belen.” “We’ll be back soon.” And I believed it. I believed it
because, at fourteen, I had that certainty of youth, the certainty I would always see the people I
loved again.

“Maria de los Angeles!” My mother called me Maria de los Angeles when she was upset
and “Puchita” when she felt affectionate. Her suitcase was about to be inspected. She was
surrounded by bearded men in olive green uniforms, and I feared for her. Two grizzly soldiers who
could hardly contain their long-repressed rage opened the big suitcase covered with peeling, faded,
blue Pan Am stickers. Los milicianos, the militiamen, pulled out my mother’s neatly tucked away
underwear with gusto. “Su cartera.” “Your handbag,” one of them demanded. My mother handed
him her boxy, black patent leather handbag. El miliciano took out her wallet and counted the
money.
 “Is that all you’re carrying?” he asked. Taking pleasure in their
newly gained power,
“Just what’s allowed,” replied my mother, without so two young milicianos
much as raising her eyes. She lied. I knew she had rolled several inspected my small
hundred-dollar bills and had inserted them, like a Tampax, inside
her vagina. She had told me so.
valise and looked me
over from head to toe.
It was now my turn. Taking pleasure in their newly gained
power, two young milicianos inspected my small valise and looked me over from head to toe. I was
wearing my dormilonas, the small diamond studs I had worn since I was a baby, actually since the
day I was born.

“How much money are you carrying?” one of them asked while opening my purse.
Before I had a chance to reply, he gave me one last look full of loathing and, closing my purse, said,
“Proximo.” “Next.”

Los milicianos then focused their attention on the next passenger, a man I had been
watching because he seemed familiar. His straight silver hair, covered with Brylcreem, practically
reflected light. He had an innate elegance about him, and that’s what I had recognized, the self-
assuredness of the upper class. He was wearing a guayabera, the elegant, pleated, white linen shirt
that Cuban men wore in lieu of a jacket. His features were European, as was his manner. I pitied
him because he was attempting to maintain his dignity while submitting to a search, and the
struggle made him perspire.

“How long do you intend to stay in Miami?” growled one of the milicianos.

“A month. I’m going on vacation,” he replied. Like us, he was leaving on a tourist visa. I
hope you don’t lose your temper, I thought, knowing from his appearance that nobody had treated
him that way before.
I looked up and saw
I took a few steps and turned my head, looking for Belen. Around
Belen waving. I blew me were well-dressed women wearing high heels and stockings, men in
her a kiss, took a few guayaberas that had lost their starch or suits that were limp with sweat,
steps, and blew her suited little boys holding favorite toys, and little girls dressed like princesses,
another. cradling their dolls. I didn’t see Belen. She wasn’t there, or I would have
spotted her immediately. Was she gone already, I wondered?

As we approached the Cubana de Aviacion airplane, the passengers ahead of us looked up

to the sweeping terrace on the airport’s second floor and waved one last goodbye. I too looked up
and saw Belen waving. I blew her a kiss, took a few steps, and blew her another. My mother was
inspecting the terrace, her eyes darting from one onlooker to another, until she found my brother.
“Look, there’s Loren,” she said. Loren looked exceptionally handsome in his Cubana de Aviacion
shirt and navy blue pants; he had a job at the ticket counter and was working that day. Loren’s
decision to stay in Cuba had broken my parents’ hearts but he had just turned twenty-one and the
choice was his to make.

Inside the plane, I asked, “Mami, when will we be back?”

Her eyes were fixed on the landscape—the copper-colored soil, the tall, slender, swaying
royal palm trees towering over the island’s lush vegetation.

“Despues del proximo golpe.” “After the next coup.”

Out There
by Robert Isaacson (’85)

They open
the door
To the south,
the channel.
A shaft of light
floods the room.

Through the door

I see
the rye grass, the foxtail
gone to seed,
and the wild oats
bending
to the sea cliff.

We write,
or try
to write.

Yellow blooming milkweed,

a young tamarisk tree,
press against the glass,
peer through
the window.

Pages turn.
Papers shuffle.
Pencils scratch Harbor, Santa Barbara
on legal tablets. by Robert Isaacson (’85)

But a purple radish On the sea break

flowers against the fence. Harsh salt air
Wets and rusts
And, offshore, The pipe railing,
looms Standing into the wind,
The long fog bank Flaking blistered iron,
broken loose proud and failing.
from its moorings.
Most visits are alone,
Our room is not Bored with tide pools,
full of words. Idling in gusty sunlight.

There is really In winter the sea

only the light, Batters the break,
and, within it, Shooting white water
the very heart of the light, High over the wall.
with all that it brings,
pouring ceaselessly
through the door.
 Last Poem in the World
by Robert Isaacson (’85)

At the end,
when we write,

Of the Happy Ending there will be

by Gabriel Arquilevich (’01) a final poem,

and that final poem

You’re home, and there’s still no moral will appear

to the story—the clamor and the wreck, last of all,

spoken
shrouded pockets, changing lanes
in the great
shuffling procession
at speeds you think will get you where you are
of time,
when you don’t even know as we all

how it feels. It’s only memory through these eyes, make our way
out of the vast plaza

where we have
only what you can’t believe in— stood in the sun

like spectators
the tanks and ladders, the warehouse militia
to a great pageant.

hiding for cover from the guard dogs, The last poem
will then
from the ghosts of guard dogs. At the game, the cheer-
disappear
with no lingering

leaders kick their legs and pump their fists, the couple in the now
empty hallways
at the bowling lanes
where
our voices
keep score. All pain and hardwood. And where would you go
might
that the body won’t follow? Your clothes yet echo

can’t protect you, and there’s no leisure, no compromise as they fade

into silence,

at peace,
knowing that all
once the cirrus calls, moth-white, stretching the sky,
that could
and in the field of blossoming oak, the trail and treasure have been said

of the happy ending. has been so

nearly said.
 Getting Ready for Young Writers’ Camp
by Aline Shapiro (’91)

Fellows participating as counselors in Young Writers Camp this summer had their big
planning session in April. It always amazes me when I see the fresh exchange of ideas and
excitement in the air as new and old teacher-consultants gather together to share and create a
program that will capture and engage the minds of young campers. Campers become part of a
writing community similar to the one created every summer in the Institute. They also make new
friends, publish pieces in an anthology, and have a graduation at the end of their time in camp.

There are eighteen Fellows teaching at four college campuses. At Cal Lutheran, we have Jerri
LeJuene, Pat Bachamp, Mary Gutierez and Cathy Crook. At UCSB, we have Alison Bright, Matt
McCaffrey, Amy Christensen, Bojana Hill, Barbara Conway, Janet Longpre and Peggy Nicholson. At
Oxnard College, Sally King, Matt Urwick, Kimbrough Ernest and Darryl Lewis-Abriol are teaching.
Lastly, Jan Brown, Sharron Luft, Mark Jasso and Vickie Gill are at Allan Hancock College.

Please help us fill enrollment by doing outreach in your school community. If there are
Migrant Education or Gate Coordinators at your school, make sure they have information about
SCWriP and Young Writers Camp. Call the office if you need more brochures. We do have some in
Spanish. Have a stack of brochures available at your Open Houses. Most importantly, send us the
students that you know would appreciate and benefit from a summer of writing. Thank you for your
continued support. Any questions? Email me at alinecarp@verizon.net.

South Coast Writing Project

Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106

THE SCWRIP DIRECTORIAL STAFF:

Director: Sheridan Blau
Co-Director: Rosemary Cabe
Co-Director: Joni Chancer
Co-Director: Jack Phreaner

http://education.ucsb.edu/scwrip/