NSUWP Rural Sites Mini-Grant 2009-2010
Our site was awarded a Rural Sites Network mini-grant from NWP in 2009. The team’s initial proposal was to explore the relationship between geographical and cultural isolation and student apathy, but once the work had begun, we learned many things about what was “right” with rural education, not the typical view of what is “wrong” with it. We decided to ask students what an effective rural educator is and to identify teachers who met that criteria. We surveyed over 600 students in 5 different schools in 3 rural districts. Then, we interviewed and observed the teachers identified by the students. Two things that stood out for us in the study were:
1) In every school where there were writing project teachers on faculty, writing project teachers were named by the students as effective rural educators.
2) Every teacher identified revealed that he/she was committed to doing some sort of expressive writing with the students.
Teachers identified in this study partnered with NSUWP teacher-consultants to create an annotated bibliography of resources and to share what they do in their classrooms with other teachers in a series of workshops and at the state Literacy Lagniappe Conference August 2010. Artifacts from this work are linked here for site leaders who wish to view the tools used for the study or for other educators who are interested in the resources developed from the study.
You may also contact us at nsuwp@nsula.edu or 318-357-5339 if you’d like information about how the strategies identified in this study can be shared in workshops at your school or in your district.
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