Co-directors Win Grants for EMWP Programs

Congratulations to Cathy Fleischer and John Staunton, who have each been awarded the Dean's Program Development Initiative Award for 2009-2010!

Congratulations to Cathy Fleischer who was awarded funding from the Dean’s Program Development Initiative to further develop a collaboration with EMU’s University Writing Center (UWC) to design an expansion of workshops designed for teens and parents of teens, as a way of helping students make the transition from high school to college writing.
These new workshops—Preparing for College Writing and Helping Your Teen Prepare for College Writing—have been designed by Cathy Fleischer, EMWP Co-Director; Linda Adler-Kassner, UWC Faculty Advisor; and Kim Pavlock, EMWP Youth and Family Literacy Coordinator, and other adjunct lecturers employed by the UWC. They will be taught mostly by adjunct lecturers and graduate assistants who work as consultants in the UWC.
Funding through the Dean’s Program Initiative will be supporting the start-up of this program as we seek to offer the parent and teen workshops at area high schools and other local venues free of charge. We believe the success of this program will benefit not only the teens and parents of teens who attend the workshops, but also EMU, the UWC, the EMWP, and the EMWP Family Literacy Initiative.

We first presented these workshops in May 2009 at 826michigan (a non-profit writing center for teens located in Ann Arbor) and in October 2009 at the EMU National Day on Writing and Explore Eastern. High school administrators, teachers, parents, and/or teens interested in attending one of these two new workshops are invited to join us on March 18 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at 826michigan in Ann Arbor. Please go to www.826michigan.org to register.


John Staunton Receives Dean’s Program Development Grant

If EMU someday has a summer literature institute, it will have begun with a College of Arts and Sciences grant ($5000) to John Staunton for the development of a Literature Pedagogy Inquiry group for the university’s English dept faculty. The group plans to conduct classroom research around areas of literature pedagogy in the Winter 2010 semester and meet for a 3-day Teacher Inquiry Seminar in April, modeled on the TIC Summer Institute. The group draws together faculty from Creative Writing, English Education, African American Literature, General Education, and Literature Major Programs, and will seek to develop capacity for an advisory group for Literature Institute work in concert with EMWP teachers and TIC networks.