These Magical, Incredible, Beautiful 3 - @_Mitchellaneous @mrsherzogSHS @Othello88 - Every Student in America Deserves an Opportunity to Write With Them

No, I don't have permission to use this photo and, Yes, they potentially could be mug shots, but I'm for real when I post this: these three educators, Dave Wooley, Kim Herzog, and Shaun Mitchell, are the epitome of excellent teaching. They are quick-witted, savvy, humorous, talented, knowledgeable, and gifted.

On that last word - what makes them spectacular is how they share their gifts willingly, so others can develop their own

Several years ago, Shaun said he really wanted to created a literacy lab that was more action-oriented, political, and lively. When funding came from the National Writing Project to develop summer programs, we recruited Kim and Dave...the rest has been history.

We were all skeptical about teaching digitally this summer, but succumbed to the reality and waited to see if kids would sign up. We didn't want to go over 30 for Project Citizen, but accepted 33 (with some of the kids not able to stay the entire time). We also had several Ithaca College pre-student teachers doing observational work online with us. Yesterday afternoon, we broke out into rooms and allowed the kids to present their writing from the last two weeks. The four of us are in awe. The writers from NY, CT,  and Massachusetts blew our brains. In their survey, too, 100% of them said they loved learning with CWP online and all rated the program 4 to 5 out of 5, with a majority on the 5 side with comments like: I don't believe in perfection, yes. I'm the kid who gives 4's, and every one needs something to work for, don't they?

What amazed us more is that we run Project Citizen with a hodgepodge of presentations, ideas, and writing genres, giving them 7 of the 10 days to experiment and debate through different genres. This year we did personal pieces (1st person and 2nd person), mixed tapes and hip hop, poetry, Op Ed, and script-writing. Kids were able to submit one or two pieces for publication and the variety of submissions is a tremendous overview of the instruction provided. Kids gravitated to the genres and subjects that appealed to them most.

The other incredible part of the work was the co-teaching that occurred between the three (and with me sort of DJ'ING the Zoom spaces (handing them off so they got training, too). They moved between chat, video, YouTube, audio, Google Spaces, mentor texts, and student work like geniuses. The co-teaching was also successful, because everyone had one another's backs and monitored the different spaces while the other was teaching.

Personally, I think this is a model for the nation and all schools (as I know my colleague Jessica Early in Arizona has also found out).

It works. It can be done. And it's impressive. Of course, I always say, too - bad classroom teachers are likely to also be bad online teachers. It is all in the content knowledge, trust, personality and approach.

These three, though. Phew. I love them to death (and so do their students).

Well, hello, August. Um. Didn't know you were coming so soon.