News

The National Writing Project will be rebroadcasting NeWP’s recent series of podcast episodes—“Place-Based Education with the Nebraska Writing Project”—as part of their upcoming virtual writing festival, #WriteOut.

#WriteOut is a free two-week event—October 11-25, 2020—organized as a series of online activities where educators, students, and the public are invited to explore national parks and other public spaces to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing. #WriteOut is in its third year and is sponsored by the National Writing Project and the National Park Service.

Learn more about the event and register on the National Writing Project’s website.

As part of a partnership between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service, the Nebraska Writing Project (NeWP) presents its Place-Conscious Education NWP Radio Podcast Series. In this seven-part audio series, NeWP director Robert Brooke and several Nebraska teacher-leaders introduce their place-conscious approach and discuss several projects and partnerships that have expanded and deepened the approach over the years. The full audio series is available at write.learn.lead, and will be rebroadcast as part of the Plainstate podcast, a production of the Department of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Listen Online

Episode 1: Basics of Place Conscious Education: The Nebraska Experience. In this first episode, Nebraska Writing Project director Robert Brooke introduces the basic concepts of place-conscious education and frames the series of examples that are featured in the remaining episodes.

Episode 2: We Are All Immigrants
In this second episode, Brooke is joined by educator and doctoral candidate Cara Morgenson to discuss an extensive project for her high school English learners with the Homestead National Monument and Brooke’s college juniors.

Episode 3: Blending Place-Based Education and C3WP in Rural Nebraska: A Focus on Civil Discourse
In the third episode, Brooke and English educator Melissa Legate illustrate how a place-conscious focus can blend with the C3WP emphasis on civic engagement and understanding issues from multiple perspectives.

Episode 4: Place-Conscious Experiential Writing for Students and Teachers
Learn about a partnership between the Nebraska Writing Project and Homestead National Monument that used place-based writing to give students a greater appreciation of place, writing, history, and the Homestead Act.

Episode 5: Bare Bones: Place-Based Teaching Through the Stories of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
Part five of The Nebraska Experience gives an outline of the initial work between the Nebraska Writing Project and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and examines the rich place-based teaching that occurred in this partnership.

Episode 6: Writing the River: Nebraska Writing Project and Niobrara Scenic River Partnership
Hear about a new partnership between the National Park Service and the Nebraska Writing Project that is under development and moving toward a planned river float for area high school students to allow them to experience the Niobrara River in a way they may not have done in the past.

Episode 7: Being Heard: Students Presenting Live to State Senators on Local Issues
The final episode of our seven-part series, The Nebraska Experience, explores an approach to teaching argument writing that involves students in researching local issues and presenting advocacy writing live to legislators at the state capitol.

The Nebraska Writing Project’s youth workshop, “I Love to Write,” was the focus of an article by Margaret Reist for the Lincoln Journal Star:

Presented with a choice not long ago — go on vacation or stay in town to attend a weeklong writing workshop — Lily Abele did not hesitate.

Not for a second. Hint: The mountains lost out, a distant second to the mighty pen, or maybe laptop.

“Lily said ‘I have got to go to the writing workshop. It’s just a good time to spend time writing,’” according to her mom, Melissa Abele.

And so it will be that next week, Lily, who will start fifth grade at Pyrtle Elementary this fall, will join other students on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s East Campus for a workshop called, appropriately, the “I Love To Write” workshop.

The Daily Nebraskan culture section chatted with Robert Brooke and Adam Hubrig: “Nebraska Writing Project connects writing teachers to strengthen skills”

Writers and friends gathered on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on September 22 at Platte River State Park, halfway between Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. We enjoyed a perfect fall day to write in community in a variety of lovely settings. As always, we enjoyed sharing bits of what we had written and good company!

The Nebraska Writing Project once again partnered with the Nebraska Education Technology Association (NETA) to be part of the NETA Spring Conference at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha April 19-20.

This year’s partnership was coordinated by NeWP advisory board members Jennifer Troester and Melissa Legate, who communicated with NeWP’s executive director throughout the school year. As part of this partnership, NeWP was able to feature a slide in the NETA Conference slide deck that promoted our organization and linked to the NeWP webpage. Additionally, NeWP had the opportunity to publish an article written by one of our affiliates in a monthly NETA newsletter. This year’s article was written by Jennifer Troester about her O’Neill 8th grade class’s writing partnership with co-director Rachael Shah’s class of UNL preservice teachers and was featured in the April issue of the NETA newsletter. One additional perk of the NeWP-NETA partnership was NETA’s promotion of our Summer Institute in February through its email list.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of the partnership with NETA was the chance for NeWP to present two breakout sessions at the conference. However, with two NeWP members submitting proposals of their own, the organization was represented in four breakout sessions. The first was titled “Digital Collaborations Across Schools: How to Build a Strong Online Writing Exchange” by Jennifer Troester and Rachael Shah. NeWP TC Jenny Bruck presented a session titled “Using Online Tools to Conference Grade,” which received tremendously positive feedback from several attendees. Melissa Legate also presented at the conference with a session on “Digital Discussion: Sharing Students’ Learning, Thinking, and Writing.” And finally, Rachel Jank presented her session titled “Every Student Gets a Website.”

For both days of the conference, NeWP promoted the many activities our organization sponsors for teachers, students, and communities with special emphasis given to promoting the Summer Institute, to which teachers could apply until April 30. Dozens of Nebraska teachers from a variety of grade levels and disciplines stopped by the information table and spoke with NeWP representatives Jennifer Bruck, Sarah Kroenke, Melissa Legate, Rachael Shah, and Jennifer Troester about what NeWP stands for and the opportunities it provides. Nearly thirty people gave their contact information in order to receive more information about NeWP and future events.

Also on Thursday, NeWP had the opportunity through the NETA partnership to host an evening event after the day’s final session. Jennifer Troester and Melissa Legate coordinated a Speed Geeking event in which participants could share their favorite educational technology strategies in presentations of five minutes or less. This year’s event was attended by Melissa and Jennifer, as well as advisory board member Brenda Larabee, her colleague, and Katie Morrow of ESU 8. Earlier promotion in future years should hopefully yield stronger attendance at this event.

The NETA conference continues to be an excellent way for NeWP to connect with passionate and innovative educators all across Nebraska and get the word out about the many quality programs our organization offers.

Please join us for our annual Spring Gathering Friday May 3 6-8 PM on the UNL campus. We will celebrate the year’s events and participants, hear readings from Young Writers and Veterans and National Park outreach, and honor the year’s teaching and administrative award winners. We hope to see you there!

NeWP Spring Gathering

Join us!

May 3rd, 2019
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
UNL City Campus Union, Regency Suite
14th and R Streets