Rural Sites Network Conference
The 2011 Rural Sites Network Conference of the National Writing Project was held last weekend (March 11-12) in Little Rock, Arkansas, hosted by the Great Bear Writing Project. Associate Director Ken Martin represented the Maine Writing Project. The theme of the Conference was “Overcoming inequity: Creating opportunities for all rural students.” In 1957, nine ordinary teenagers, the Little Rock Nine, stepped up to the front lines in the civil rights movement and became the first students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. Their energy imbues the city of Little Rock and inspired the more than 200 teacher-consultants that gathered there from around the country.
Together with Christina Cantrill of NWP, Ken presented a workshop entitled “Digital Is: How can we leverage digital writing to create opportunities for ALL rural students?” Digital Is is a web-based collection of ideas, reflections, and stories about what it means to teach writing in our digital, interconnected world. A close look at the Digital Is resource “Rural Voices Radio: What Digital Is” prompted a discussion of how being from a rural area can present students with equity issues in growing up and thinking about their place in the world.
Visitors to the Digital Is website are invited not just to view the resources, but to join the discussion of what it means to write and to teach writing in a digital context. The Digital Is Initiative of the National Writing Project is supported by the Digital Media and Learning Initiative of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Dave Boardman and a number of MWP Teacher-consultants have been involved in a yearlong inquiry as a part of Digital Is, and they will be on hand at Writing Ourselves on April 2nd to share some of their work.