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Rural Sites Network

2010 Resource Development Retreat

Application Deadline: February 15, 2010
To submit your application, go to: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/events/419

Overview

Retreat participants will be guided through a process to reshape successful local site work into one or more resources that may be shared with a broader audience. These resources may include, but are not limited to, articles, conference proposal and session development, discussion protocols for using a particular article in inservice or continuity work, and ideas for creating or using Web-based tools. By the end of the retreat, participants will leave with a resource draft for local use and knowledge of possibilities for further dissemination within the NWP network.

Teams of two teacher-leaders are encouraged to apply, but individuals may apply. The RSN is especially interested in work that addresses issues such as the following:

• What unique challenges face new teachers in rural schools and how are sites responding to those challenges?
• What resources exist to help rural sites talk and think about diversity in rural places? Begin discourses about race? Support teachers of rural African American or Native American students?
• How do writing project sites help teachers in rural schools develop the necessary expertise to work with English language learners and/or honor linguistic or cultural identity?
• What resources exist to help rural sites talk about and rethink the role of place consciousness as a pedagogical implication?
• What promising practices are writing project sites using to provide rural teachers with leadership opportunities and/or inservice work across geographical barriers and distances?
• What do sites know about the resiliency of rural students and teachers?

Your complete application will consist of three parts:

1. Up-to-date contact information for each participant that includes
1. name of participant
2. email address
3. home address
4. home phone
5. work address
6. work phone
7. name of site and number of years of involvement
8. name of site director and site director's email address
9. a brief paragraph describing your involvement with the work to be addressed in the resource you will be developing.
2. Answers to the application questions.
3. Letter of support from your site director or co-director.

Application questions (limit 3 pages)

1. Describe your experience with your local writing project site and with rural education. (Please use no more than two paragraphs for this.)
2. Tell us about the resource you hope to create:
• Please name the resource.
• Briefly describe the local issue or opportunity that prompted the site program, philosophical stance, or inquiry upon which your resource will focus.
• Briefly share how this program/stance/inquiry has expanded your site's capacity to serve rural schools and teachers or offer rural teachers access to leadership opportunities at your site.
• How would you describe your resource's relevance for other writing project sites serving rural schools and teachers?
• What data, evidence, examples of work, and/or human resources are available to you to help develop the resource?
• Discuss the form you imagine your resource might take. Please see the document titled "Resource Guidelines"—found on the event homepage—for a list of possible forms your resource may take. This list is merely a tool to jump-start your thinking, and you are not limited to these forms.

Letter of Support

This application requires a brief letter from your site director indicating support for you as you prepare to document your site's work through the development of this new resource. Please ask your site director to respond to the email inquiry he or she will receive after you have submitted your Resource Development Retreat application online.

Cost

Sites are expected to cover all travel costs. Food and lodging costs will be covered for retreat participants by the NWP. Your application will not be complete until we receive your letter of support.

Selection Process

Participation in this retreat is by application only. The pool of participants chosen will be as representative as possible of the geographic, racial, and ethnic diversity of the Rural Sites Network. Sites are strongly encouraged to send a team of two teacher-consultants to develop a resource about a successful site practice in a rural setting. However, individuals may apply. The Resource Development Retreat is limited to 20 participants.

Deadline

Submit completed applications no later than February 15, 2010. All applicants will be contacted regarding their applications by March 8, 2010.