The WPCTE Community by Amy Bouch and Carol Frow
Here we are. The 2021-2022 school year. We have over a year of pandemic-teaching under our belts, and we have gained so much knowledge.
One of the big takeaways from living through a global pandemic is that community matters. Relationships matter. Socializing matters. Being around other human beings matters.
As the President and Vice President of WPCTE, we think of our organization as a family. We may not be able to see each other all the time or talk frequently, but any time we come together, it feels comfortable, exciting, and invigorating.
We are looking forward to a year of fostering community within our organization (family) and classrooms.
Creating Community Within WPCTE
Over the summer, we had the joy of meeting in person to discuss Literature We Love for Lessons! It was great to see members face-to-face and discuss books, short stories, and poems that we enjoy using in our classrooms!
Our first event of the current school year is an opportunity to take in art in the presence of others in an outside environment. WPCTE members are invited to gather for Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks on Saturday, September 25 at 2:00pm in Frick Park for an all-female production of Hamlet! Attendance is free, and we suggest that you bring a blanket or chair.
We know that discussing books can bring people together, so we are continuing our book club discussions. Our fall selection, Writing Circles by Jim Vopat, focuses on how students can create community through their writing while helping each other to achieve greater.
WPCTE will continue to connect members through activities for students such as the Flash Fiction Writing Contest and English Festival.
Conferences are a great way to connect with each other. This fall, consider participating in the NCTE Annual Convention or PCTELA Conference. This coming spring, WPCTE is partnering with Saint Vincent College to host a local conference. We will share more information soon in upcoming emails blasts!
WPCTE is meant to support us all. If you have any suggestions for activities, please suggest them! Our community is made stronger by all of our members.
Creating Community Within Our Classrooms
Author Lesley Roessing has become a close friend of WPCTE in the past year. She inspired us with her presence at our first virtual book club discussion last year to discuss her book Talking Texts: A Teachers' Guide to Book Clubs across the Curriculum. Book clubs can be a great way to create community in our classrooms because it allows students to connect through the beauty of words and stories.
Roessing has another book that can provide even more opportunities for creating community within classrooms--No More "Us" and "Them": Classroom Lessons and Activities to Promote Peer Respect. A favorite activity that we cannot wait to try in our classrooms is the Paired-Squared activity. First, students are paired up to discover five things they have in common. Each pair then joins another pair to find four things they have in common. Then, each group of four joins another group of four to find three things they have in common. This joining of groups continues until the whole class discovers something they have in common with each other. The many activities explained in Roessing’s book can be used in multiple content areas, so you can even create community with teachers of other disciplines in your school by reading and discussing this book together!
Some additional resources that may be helpful in strengthening your classroom community are NCTE - Creating Community through Writing and Edutopia - 10 Powerful Community-Building Ideas.
We are so excited for this school year with all of you and your students! If you have more ideas for strengthening our community, please share them by sending an email, commenting on this blog post, or by writing your own blog post! WPCTE is made strong by all of our wonderful (family) members!