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Posts tagged ‘Jolene Borgese’

Sep 8

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Celebrating International Literacy Day

By Lynne R. Dorfman

International Literacy Day, celebrated this year on Monday, September 8th, helps us revitalize our commitment to the nurturing of literacy lives – both children and adults – by focusing attention on literacy successes in our classroom, school, community, and networks on twitter, facebook, and other social media forms. This year’s theme, “Lift Off to Literacy,” inspires students to shoot for the stars. We ask you to share the message that building a literacy habit takes just a little time each day.   Read more

Aug 19

Why I Love Teaching

By Jolene Borgese

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of teaching a ten day writing course to middle school students at the PAWLP Youth Writing Project. I had run the first Youth Writing Project on campus with about 50 writers and six teachers. We weren’t sure what we were doing back then but we knew we were on to something big! It was a success that bloomed into a huge project for 30 years.

This summer, my 12 writers were a mixed bag of pre-adolescents who wanted to come to writing camp, and others whose parents had signed them up.  They all made the best of it. They caught my enthusiasm for writing, and, in their preteen coolness, actually showed they liked my activities. Read more

Nov 18

Full Circle

By Jolene Borgese

      I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe people come in and out of our lives for a reason and a few stick around forever. I am most curious about the people who come in and out our lives and then return years later. I haven’t figured out the reason, but I suspect I never will.

      This semester I have been teaching graduate school and presenting professional development (for the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project) at two very different schools. There seems to be an invisible thread running through all these very different teachers I’ve met.  They are young, old, privileged, struggling, working at stellar schools, and schools that lack sufficient books. All of these teachers have a common need that I had first addressed 30 some years ago – writing instruction strategies, specifically revision strategies. Read more