September Accomplishments

Dr. Bob Bergland, Professor of Journalism, was a member of a panel, "Journalism Education at Missouri Universities" at the Missouri Press Association annual convention Sept. 7 in Kansas City.

Ms. Mary Dockery, Instructor of English, has had her poem "Peripherals" appear in Lost in Thought: Issue 5.

Dr. Jeanie Crain, Professor of English, worked on AQIP Systems Portfolio evaluation as well as Action Projects.

The Prairie Lands Writing Project is pleased to announce that fourteen area teachers have successfully completed the 2013 Invitational Summer Institute.  On Sept. 14, these teachers returned to Missouri Western for the Institute’s Fall Finish event, during which they received certificates and became our newest PLWP Teacher Consultants.

            PLWP Teacher Consultants have facilitated multiple professional development workshops this month at schools in Hamilton, Breckenridge, and Braymer as part of our work with the College Ready Writers Program, a federally-funded Investing in Innovation (i3) grant administered by the National Writing Project (NWP).

Teacher Consultant Terri McAvoy has also begun her monthly series of model lesson sessions at Pickett Elementary School in Saint Joseph as part of another federally-funded NWP program made possible through a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant.

Finally, several PLWP site leaders presented two days of workshops for teachers at the Missouri Writing Projects Networks Conference in Columbia on Sept. 19^th and 20^th.  The sessions, which explored the concept of creativity within the conference theme of “Creating Contexts for Real-World Writing,” were presented by Tom Pankiewicz (MWSU), Heidi Mick (Platte County), Christie Leigan (Saint Joseph), Valorie Stokes (Platte County), Sara Capra (Park Hill), and Terri McAvoy (retired).