Over 250 students in grades 9-12 from 15 different schools attended PLWP's High School Writing Day on March 5.  The event was coordinated by PLWP Co-Director Amy Miller (MWSU) and emceed by Teacher Consultant Terrance Sanders (Braymer), with help from Teacher Consultant Janet Jelavich (Maryville, retired), PLWP Director Susan Martens, and several MWSU pre-service English teachers, including Hanna Long, Adina Ogle, Wayne Griffin, Garrett Durbin, Jessica Helm, Jessie Walters, Sarah Chellew, Kayli Silket, Alayna Mazzeffe, Ashleigh Merrigan, and Brittany Assel.  Workshops were presented by several EML Department faculty, including Michael Charlton, Bill Church, Marianne Kunkel, Mary Stone, Meredith Katchen, and Brooksie Kluge, as well as Bob Bergland (Communication and Journalism), Tom Pankiewicz (MWSU, retired), and PLWP Teacher Consultants from the Saint Joseph School District Kyla Ward, Misty Burright, and Vicky Meyer. 

The PLWP also hosted its first-ever Middle School Writing Night on March 23, coordinated by MAA students who are also PLWP Teacher Consultants and Bode Middle school teachers, Josie Clark and Elisabeth Alkier, with help from PLWP Teacher Consultant and SJSD Gate Instructor Deb Ballin. Parents and friends came to hear 18 area students in grades 6-8 reading original writing composed in their after school and GATE writing clubs.  It was the culminating event for PLWP's 2014-2015 Community Literacy Initiative, funded by a U.S. Department of Education SEED (Supporting Effective Educator Development) Teacher Leadership grant sponsored by the National Writing Project. 

Dr. Kaye Adkins presented a paper, "Army Flash! Narrating a Civil Defense Procedure" at the conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing in Tampa, Florida. The paper is based on research that Dr. Adkins conducted while on sabbatical in fall of 2014. While in Tampa, Dr. Adkins also attended the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Marianne Kunkel's poem "I Guess," which appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Rattle, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Also, four panels that she proposed for North American Review's Bicentennial Creative Writing and Literature Conference were approved, including two with Mary Stone and two others with MWSU undergraduate students Crystal Crawford, Lindsey Lucas, and Chris Pankiewicz.

Michael Charlton presented a paper on international program collaborations at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Mary Dockery had two poems published in the Issue 5 of The Atlas Review, "Long Distance" and "I Don't Know How to Live Here."  She also had a chapbook released in March: Honey and Bandages, by Folded Word Press, written with Katie Longofono.

Jeanie Crain has received another four-year appointment to the Peer Corps of the Higher Learning Commission, effective until August 31, 2018. She also received thanks from the Commission for her service since 2003.

Susan Martens has recently published two essays in the current issue of Louisiana Literature as part of a collection called "Finding Your Muse in New Orleans."

Kay Siebler presented her paper "An American Freirista in China: Critical Pedagogy in Post-Moa Communism" at the College Composition and Communication Conference in Tampa, Florida on March 21, 2015. Here is a photo of how she is spending her sabbatical.