Monday, September 14, 2009

Reunion Potluck

On September 14th, we had a reunion potluck at USC-Sumter for all former writing project participants. The evening included wonder excellent homemade biscuits (that turned out to be very much in the theme of things that evening), fried chicken, hashbrown casserole, plus tons of drinks a dessert. After sharing the new website and some of the upcoming events (check the website to get a complete listing!), we had a wonderful presentation by Amy Mikell on "Kneading Topics for Young Writers."

Amy brought in a wonderful poem by Freda Quenneville, "Mother's Biscuits," and walked us through a wonderful lesson that included a shared and choral reading of the poem, creating a T-chart on our noticings and response, creating a list of foods that we have emotional ties to, and then giving us time to talk, write, and share with one another.


Some of the writing we shared together included a haiku by Ureka entitled "Help:"

Help!

If you taste momma's
Jiffy cornbread dressing you'll
sho nuf hurt yourself!


And last Diane shared a piece about her experience with biscuits, entitled "Those Biscuit Holes":

Few people know the true art of drilling biscuit holes.

Warm, palm-sized biscuits,

a sticky can of Cane Patch syrup,

an index finger for a drill—

and a jeweler’s precision as he cuts into an oil well—

in reverse—

for biscuit holes come first

before the mother load of syrup fills the cache.


The slow,

slow

pouring

of the w a t e r y t h i n black nectar

is crucial for success.

The smiling syrup at the hole’s precipice

proclaims the child’s lip-licking, ephemeral victory

of a perfectly drilled

ready-to-eat

syrup biscuit.


After all this writing and talking about biscuits, I have to admit I stopped off at KFC on my way home and got a biscuit!

-Written by Jennifer L. Wilson

Leadership Retreat

I just wanted to let everyone know what a great time I had at the leadership retreat last week. I was disappointed about not having the summer institute at first, but we got so many important items taken care of in such a short time that it was worth it. I'm especially excited about the advanced summer institute that Suzanne Koty and I are going to do for TCs. I've already talked to several TCs who are also very excited about it. The workshop will be an advanced writing workshop for our TCs who just didn't get enough writing workshop when they did the summer institute and want to write more. Suzanne and I have been furiously planning that workshop. We'll have more information on the website in August. We will have an application on the website for those who are interested. I very much enjoyed seeing Frank Baker on Thursday, June 18th. I wish all of you could have been there, but his website is great too. Check it out! I have so many ideas from his presentation not only for my own classroom, but for our broadcast media class that the English department at Sumter High offers. I'm very excited about sharing some of the information and ideas with my department. As many of you know, I have had the SWWP library at my house for two years, and this was not only inconvenient for me, but a pain for all of you to check out books. Those books are now housed at the USC Sumter library, and I will be getting a complete list of all those books on our website. I'll have that list finished by Friday July 3rd. We will be getting all TCs cards so that they can check the books out of the library. If you need a book before then, please feel free to go to the library and ask where they're housed, and you can use them in the library. Hopefully this will be a more user-friendly way to run the library. I look forward to hearing from all of you. Let me know if you have any questions or comments about anything involving the SWWP.

-Written by Lynette Creech