Getting Started with Your First Residency

The Planning Meeting (Things to consider before the first class)

Teachers & Writers Collaborative’s writing residencies are collaborations between professional writers and educators. The planning meeting begins this collaboration.

In the planning meeting, teachers and writers meet with each other as well as the school’s administrators.

We recommend that writers-in-residence watch each teacher in action before the residency begins. The writer can do this after the planning meeting or just before the first class. This can take only five or ten minutes.

Here are some of the issues participating teachers and writers should think about and, if necessary, discuss during the planning meeting:

What have the teachers been doing in their classrooms?

1. What is the teacher’s writing curriculum? Do the students keep journals? Is there time set aside every day for writing?
2. What other writing programs have the teachers been using? What do they like about these programs? What are they dissatisfied with?
3. Have they ever had a writer-in-residence in their classrooms before? If they have, what did they like about the residency? What did they dislike?
4. What do teachers expect from visiting writers? What do they think their students need?
5. Do teachers have any concerns about or objections to the Writers-in-the-Schools program?

What is the writing and teaching philosophy of the visiting writer?

1. What can the teacher expect when the writer visits his or her classroom?
2. What’s the writer’s approach to spelling and grammar? How does the writer handle corrections?
3. Who’s responsible for the students’ papers? Do they have writing folders? Does the writer want the teacher to keep track of the students’ writing?

What is the role of the teacher when the writer is in the classroom?

1. Does the writer want the teacher to write with the students? Does the writer want the teacher to assist students who are having trouble or to answer their questions?
2. Who’s in charge of discipline? What are the teacher’s classroom rules? Does the writer want the teacher to modify some of those rules while the writer is there?

How does the writer want the teacher to prepare the class for his or her visit?

1. What kind of seating arrangement does the writer need?
2. Which supplies should the students have (e.g., pencils, paper, journals, folders)?
3. What can the teacher do to help his or her students look forward to the writer’s visit? One teacher suggested that the visiting writer give samples of his or her work to the teacher before the residency starts.