INTRODUCTION FROM SCOTT WEBBER

Department Head of English Language Arts and English Teacher, Cofounder of the Student Publishing Program

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about the Student Publishing Program. The project excites me both as teacher and a department head of language arts.

                  As a teacher working with composition writing, I have worked with students to think about audience and communication. For the most part, students have always seen me as the audience and have sought to communicate with me. Here we have an opportunity for students to publish their work to a real audience and communicate their thoughts over the Internet. This new opportunity will allow me, as well as other English teachers, to become a coach in the writing process rather than a judge of its product. Students will get feedback from a much wider audience than we could have envisioned only a short time ago.

                  As a department head in English language arts, I am doubly excited. First, we, in language arts, have looked for ways to bring computers to our students in meaningful and genuine ways. Doing computerized skill and drill tutorials just were not the answer. We wanted something that would truly enhance students’ learning. Publishing work via the Internet provides a powerful tool for students’ learning. To think that the work will be available online is one great step, but to consider collections of students’ work at a particular grade level available on demand truly changes the playing field. Where once we asked students “to think of themselves as authors,” we can now say, “you are authors and your work is being read across the world.” Next year’s sophomores will really have something by which to remember their sophomore year—beyond MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System).

                  The second reason for my department head excitement is the authentic accountability it offers for our writing program. Everyone, those in the system, those in the community and those in the cyber community will read and judge our students’ work. If the communities determine that our students’ writing is lagging in a particular area, we will all know it together, and English language art teachers can make the suitable curricular changes. Further, when the entire vision is in place, and all students in grades six through twelve participate, the strengths and weaknesses of our writing program will be obvious, and our program and teachers will be accountable.

                  In this first decade of the new millennium, we are on the verge of charting a new course in composition that we and others will follow into the future. How exciting!