Introductions...

Hi. Amy here -- I'm a soon-to-be third year English teacher. During this summer I'm part of an endeavor through the Nebraska Writing Project. For this project we are focusing on Literature and Social Justice.
The teachers involved in the project are reading the following books:
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere
The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers by Sheridan D. Blau
and
Writing for a Change by a group of people from the National Writing Project , that I can't remember the name of at the moment, and I don't have in front of me. As soon as I have that, I'll edit this post.

The plan is...there are seven teachers from seven different schools. Five of the teachers are from the same school district (I am one, and my blog co-author is another), and the other two teachers are from other districts in our city. Now, don't think that the five schools from one district are similar -- they are not. Each school in our district is very unique and tends to celebrate the fact that they are different from the other schools. Very often, there is heated rivalry. This is where things get interesting.

Each teacher will be selecting either four or five students to participate, with us, in this project. Each teacher-student group will, at their school, meet at least once a month to discuss the literature being studied and how it impacts the students and their lives. The idea is to create social change through the ideas garnered from reading literature. The beauty is that the students and teachers will then collaborate with one another via an online forum. Discussions will be held, questions will be asked, and perhaps (hopefully) answers will be found. However, I'm not naive enough to think that we will be solving all the world's problems, or even the problems in our own community, licketysplit and that this project will lead to enlightenment. What I do believe is that it is a step in the right direction.

In that note...I wanted to set up this blog
Till then...I'm turning over the next post to my partner in crime. I'll let her introduce herself, since what I tell you might not be what she would tell you. She's posting some of her reactions after reading through Freire. Let me tell you -- Freire is NOT for the faint of heart, for sure.