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Writing for the Public: Teacher Editorializing as a Pathway to Professional Development

By: Jonna Perrillo
Date: October 22, 2010

Summary: Jonna Perrillo, director of the West Texas Writing Project, explores the benefit to teachers, schools, and the community of her Editorial Project, which provides a pathway for teachers to move from classroom questions to published editorials.

 

Excerpt from Article

Little of my own graduate work prepared me to think about my research in terms of the public. The reality is that as a full-time PhD student, making my work relevant to and visible in a scholarly community was considered enough. For teachers, this is often not enough; my graduate students are equally concerned with how to develop more productive relationships with their students and students' families as with their colleagues. It is for this reason that I require my students to write their editorials in conjunction with a draft of a professional article and that I ask them to consider the two pieces of writing as two different responses to the same question. Together these two pieces work as an important exercise in audience.

Copyright © 2010 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Posted with permission.
Perrillo, Jonna. 2010, October. "Writing for the Public: Teacher Editorializing as a Pathway to Professional Development." English Education 43 (1): 10–32.

About the Author Jonna Perrillo is assistant professor of English education and director of the West Texas Writing Project at the University of Texas at El Paso.

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