When Carmen T. Bernier-Grand signed a book for Sophie at the Wordstock Festival, it was just the beginning of the relationship. For one week in March, Bernier-Grand became a writer in residence for Sophie’s 3rd grade class at Harney Elementary School.

Bernier-Grand led Sophie and her fellow students through a series of activities writing the first draft of a book. The guidance she provided in her week of residency will result in a bound book that each student will take home at the end of the year.

Bernier-Grand also hosted a Family Write Night at Harney. Over 100 students and parents participated in the activities. She runs her workshops in English and in Spanish, and she encourages her students to write in whatever language feels most comfortable to them.

Teachers say that her bilingual workshops, and personable demeanor that draws in children and parents equally, have created an open atmosphere for families who do not speak English at home. These parents have become more involved in their children’s academic lives as a direct result of her presence in the school.

You can meet Bernier-Grand, and hear her read from her children’s books, April 15th at the upcoming Reading Fair at the University of Portland. She will read her books in the Wordstock Reading Corner in the big red chair. Catch her there, because she soon returns to the classroom for more Family Write Nights and a classroom residency with Harney first graders.

Click here to learn more about Wordstock’s Classroom Residency programs, Family Write Nights, and more programs for students and their families.

Q: What do Beaumont Middle School, the month of September, and Wordstock have in common?
A: Author Mark Pomeroy!

In September, Mark Pomeroy became a finalist in the Wordstock Short Story competition, earning a coveted place in The Wordstock Ten Anthology, and Kirsten Parrott, a Beaumont teacher who participated in Wordstock’s Teacher as Writer program, contacted the Wordstock office looking for a professional writer who could share his passion for writing with students in a classroom artist residency. Not only was Mark Pomeroy the right fit for her writing goals for her students, but we also learned another way in which this residency was especially meaningful – Mark himself was a graduate of Beaumont in 1983, and it was his middle school creative writing teacher that encouraged him to pursue writing as a profession.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of Mark and Kirsten’s classes last week, where I saw seriously engaged 7th graders taking part in a variety of writing exercises to prepare them for writing a short story by the end of his residency week. The energy in the room was palpable, especially when he showed the students a picture of him as a Beaumont student in the early 80s. Mark finishes his residency work at Beaumont on Thursday, and we hope to share some of the student work with you after the holidays!

Lucky teachers, you don’t have to wait a whole year to get your next dose of Wordstock workshops. Our latest Wordstock for Teachers workshop gets underway in just a few short weeks.

While most of you know Wordstock for its once a year book festival, teachers know that Wordstock carries on its important work year round, in schools, and through continuing education programs for teachers.

Wordstock for Teachers’ goal is to make better writers of our students by helping their teachers become better instructors of writing. Since 1997, Wordstock has been providing writing instruction for K-12 teachers, K-8 students, parents, and practicing writers. Our founding program has served more than 1,700 teachers throughout the region, and as a result, more than 40,000 students and their families.

Teachers, we applaud the time, energy, and creativity you pour into expanding young minds. Now it’s your turn to re-charge your creative battery, and earn graduate and professional continuing education credits while you’re at it.

In this workshop you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the writing process, create original pieces, receive feedback and coaching from professional writers, and learn practical ways to bring the best of the writing process back to the classroom.

This two-part class that starts November 9th and space is limited, so register now (download the PDF).

At the end of 2010, Wordstock offered to match your Willamette Week’s Give!Guide donations, dollar for dollar, in Powell’s Books gift cards for public schools participating in The Right Brain Initiative.

Check out what we were able to do with your generous contributions at The Right Brain Initiative’s blog.

On this final day of Teacher Appreciation Week, and on the eve of Mothers’ Day, I want to take a moment thank my mother, Margo Sokolow, a creative force of music and arts education who lent her talents to the West Orange School system for more than 25 years. She taught me about schools, about how important it is to be passionate about your art, and about how important it is to share that passion with young people. And she also taught me, unconsciously, about being an advocate for educators – a lesson that has permanently influenced the shape of my life and professional career.

Growing up in the New Jersey public schools as the child of a public school educator has allowed me to see myself (the student’s perspective) and my mother (the teacher’s perspective) in just about everything I read or consider in regards to the US educational system.  And I try to consider both lenses in every aspect of my job as the Education Director for Wordstock.  What is best for our teachers? Our students? Our community? Why is it that the act of learning to articulately express oneself, of finding one’s voice as a writer, is treated like a privilege and not the foundation from which every school experience is measured?

When I read this piece in the New York Times last Sunday, I thought again about my mother and her fellow educators. Having just moved to Portland after several years of work with the NYC Public Schools, I am just getting to know the particular struggles faced by Oregon’s teachers and principals, students and parents. But the one universal commonality in all schools is that teachers need better resources if they are going to challenge their students to exceed their self-imposed limits. So when we were trading ideas about how to honor teachers during this special week, our thoughts turned to the materials that we can provide to teachers. In our case, it’s books: a grand prize of $1,000 in Powell’s Books gift cards to be spent at the discretion of the five winning teachers, for the purpose of enhancing their classroom libraries.

We’ve had a terrific time giving away three of our five grand prizes so far, getting to see the obvious excitement from our prize winners and their students upon our arrival with balloons in tow.  Next time, we’ll share more details about how we spent our Teacher Appreciation Week, and you’ll get to see and hear from our winners.