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The Write Team is a composition course available to juniors and seniors as an elective in addition to their high school or college English class. Write Team students train to become peer editors who can respond to drafts from classes across the disciplines. Participating students write regularly and read about composition theory and style. Class discussions focus on establishing criteria for good writing and on strategies and procedures for response to writing.
Adhering to the philosophy that each writer owns his or her work, Write Team editors do not make corrections on the drafts of their fellow students. Instead, they compose their responses on separate, keyed sheets that read as dialogue from responder to writer. Write Team students provide each writer with an audience, give support, ask questions, and make suggestions; but it is the writer who decides which comments are helpful and determines which changes to implement. As a result of the program, Write Team participants sharpen their own skills as they help their peers to improve their grades, and teachers open new vistas for themselves as well as their students.
The Write Team video project was launched to document how everyone benefits when the Write Team becomes part of a school’s community and culture. Created by participating students and the program coordinator, Leslie Moitoza (with support and contributions from Middle School College principal Gary Carlone), the project grew out of Ms. Moitoza’s work on digital storytelling in the summer of 2005, when she attended a weeklong professional development workshop hosted by the Bay Area Writing Project in collaboration with the Pearson Foundation. Follow-up in-class engagements with Ms. Moitoza’s students led to the development of this advocacy communications piece on the innovative and successful Write Team program.
View the Write Team video by clicking the link below. |
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