After three years, Writers Week at Hazelwood West High School has become an annual celebration of the written word. Students, faculty and invited guests who have made names for themselves as professional writers share their experiences, stories and thoughts in sessions held throughout the week (held earlier this month)<\/p>\n
Guests for 2011 included poets, performance poets, novelists, young adult authors, songwriters, journalists and more.<\/p>\n
Jodi Douglas and Douglas Jameson, communications skills teachers, coordinate the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWriters Week gets bigger and better every year,\u201d said Jameson. \u201cThe first year, we were still wrapping our heads around what Writers Week would look like and whether the students and staff would feel as passionately about it as we did. It quickly became clear that they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, we expanded our vision, reaching out for more nationally known writers, and now, in our third year, we\u2019ve expanded even further when scheduling coincidences afforded us the opportunity to collaborate directly with Fremd High School (Ill.) and share several of our guest writers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The association with Fremd High School, located in Palatine, IL, comes from Douglas and Jameson\u2019s working relationship with Gary Anderson and Tony Romano, teachers at Fremd.\u00a0 Many years ago, they started a Writers Week program at the school. Douglas got the idea to start a similar program at Hazelwood West after attending a presentation by the pair at a National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention. Last November, the four of them co-presented a session called \u201cWriters Week: How Two Schools Make Writers into Rock Stars\u201d at the conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWriters Week is important because it allows students to have a voice. They are given a venue with which to express themselves,\u201d said Douglas.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents are also able to see numerous ways in which they use writing skills in their everyday lives. There is good writing outside of the academic, outside of the analysis paper. We try to expose students to multiple genres of writing,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
Jameson thinks Writers Week is important in that it \u201cprovides a forum for our student writers to share their stories. Listening to the variety of writers \u2013 student, faculty and professional \u2013 throughout the week also allows students to understand the power of words and the importance of language beyond a classroom environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglas and Jameson said many memorable moments took place during the week.<\/p>\n
Jameson was impressed by \u201cthe bravery and courage of a number of our student presenters who shared incredibly emotional aspects of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Thursday, the combination of performance poets Sierra DeMulder and Buddy Wakefield and some of our strongest student presenters created an emotional and inspirational knockout!\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
Douglas recalls \u201cwatching students meet, thank and talk to our guest presenters, and the excitement of administrators from Troy High School after witnessing our event\u201d as being memorable.<\/p>\n
To evaluate Writers Week, Douglas said that \u201clots of questions are posed to our students and colleagues in order to get a sense of what they did and didn\u2019t like, who they enjoyed the most and least, etc. Students are pretty open about what they do and don\u2019t like. It\u2019s mainly a matter of listening. Students post reactions on the Ning site, and we also use the thank you letters we require as a gauge for what they liked most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglas, Jameson and several teachers require a Writers Week assignment that asks students to write reaction papers and thank you notes. A survey is sent to the guest writers.<\/p>\n
For 2012, they hope to see an increase in student applications for participation, as well as faculty writers. (story courtesy of the Hazelwood District Communications Dept.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After three years, Writers Week at Hazelwood West High School has become an annual celebration of the written word. Students, faculty and invited guests who have made names for themselves as professional writers share their experiences, stories and thoughts in sessions held throughout the week (held earlier this month) Guests for 2011 included poets, performance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-school-news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n