Saturday, March 6, 2010

WRITE ON! $3000 GRANT RECEIVED FOR INSPIRING STUDENTS TO WRITE

Each year the College Board recognizes exceptional teachers of grades 6 through 12 for the innovative methods they use to develop their students' writing skills. Grants of $3,000 each will be awarded to teachers who are doing an inspiring job of teaching their students to write and who will benefit most from a grant to enhance a successful project.

The award was named for Bob Costas, the Emmy Award-winning broadcaster and author, for his dedication to the craft of writing and his generous public service work on behalf of the National Commission on Writing.

Recipients of the 2010 Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing
Middle States Region Nancy Kaplan of the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies in Staten Island, N.Y., teaches journalism and English. Her students collaborate with student-writers from other nations to produce an international report on topics including the war in Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and teen life in various cultures.

Western Region
Eric Gutierrez, a history teacher at Whitney High School in Cerritos, Calif., uses blogging to encourage his seventh-grade history students to organize and articulate their ideas about historical and current events. Posting their work online gives added incentive, he said, for students to improve their critical thinking and writing skills.

Southwest Region
Lynne Dozier of Klein Forest High School in Houston sponsors the student art and literature anthology called the Aquilas Stilus, which means “the eagle’s pen” in Latin. The student publication is in its 17th year, and manuscripts are chosen in order to reflect the diverse voices and creative talents across the high school.

Midwest Region
Keri Grady of Saint Martin de Porres High School in Cleveland, Ohio, teaches multimedia journalism and assigns her students a variety of stories chronicling life at their school and in their community. Students write and produce stories to educate their audience and illustrate their perspective on contemporary issues.

New England Region
Patricia Pflaumer of Abington High School in Abington, Mass., leads an effort called Students Write to Be Heard, or SW2BH. The goal she sets for her students is for them to have written work published during the school year, whether in a literary magazine, school newspaper or writing conference or contest.

Southern Region
Gabriel Ortiz, education program director at Oasis Middle School in Bradenton, Fla., leads two major projects in the Writing Workshop at Oasis: a school book and a theatre production. The school book, Seen but Not Heard, allows students to share personal stories and serves as a mentor text for other children.

2 comments:

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Anonymous said...

This is an old article, but I hear sometimes about Gabriel Ortiz, Assistant Principal and Reading Teacher of Oasis Middle School receiving grants and/or his recent "Unity Award" in Sarasota Magazine. As someone who was formerly affiliated with Oasis Middle School I would love to know where the money went. The students at the school are given poor, outdated computers, tablets/computers with missing keys, broken screens, etc... There is a revolving door of teachers and staff at the school because the teachers and staff are paid very poorly. Mr. Ortiz travels extensively and I am not certain that ALL of these trips are funded by grants. The money is NOT going for teacher salaries or additional/updated resources for kids.

This teacher (Gabriel Ortiz/Oasis Middle School/Bradenton, FL) is a prima donna and the only one that is allowed to be a "star" at Oasis Middle School. Ortiz is a complete and total narcissist. He is not "changing lives" through the power of theatre because only a very small, select group of students who participated. Out of a student population of around 130 students, less than 10 girls participated in this alleged life-changing theatre project.

Gabriel Ortiz and Oasis Middle School are NOT what they appear to be.