2004 Annual Report, Achievement Awards in Writing Advisory Committee

The NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing Program makes use of an advisory committee and state coordinators.  Their functions are as follows:

Achievement Awards in Writing Advisory Committee:  To advise the NCTE staff liaison on any changes that should be made in the Achievement Awards program; suggest impromptu theme topics; edit and approve the final topics; finalize scoring guides for the topic; review judging procedures; recommend judges; recommend ways of publicizing the program, and investigate ways of aiding the winners.

State Coordinators:  To advise the NCTE staff liaison on any changes that should be made in the Achievement Awards program; review judging procedures; recommend judges; recommend ways of publicizing the program; investigate ways of aiding the winners, and give suggestions for the impromptu theme topics.

All members of the Achievement Awards in Writing Advisory Committee, including new member Rebecca Dierking, a high school teacher from Missouri, met at the Annual Convention in San Francisco last November to discuss, choose, edit, and approve the final wording for the two impromptu writing prompts for the 2004 competition.  No visitors attended our open meeting.  With 8 timely topics from which to choose, it took us most of the two-hour meeting time to choose and edit the final topics. 

We also discussed the time line for our work, deciding that all of us preferred an email reminder in late August-early September requesting topic prompts by mid-October.  Then we would have time to read over all suggested prompts, do some editing, and come to the meeting prepared to vote and make final edits.  Everyone felt the end of June was too early to start the process, too easy for each of us to miss the request because of summer responsibilities and vacations. We were pleased to hear from Millie Davis that the two prompts we chose had resulted in some effective impromptu writing according to several teachers and state coordinators.  We also decided, since our committee is small (5 plus Millie), we preferred to continue corresponding through email rather than using the discussion community set up for our committee.  It seemed to us we'd have to email each other any way to let people know when something was on the discussion site to respond to, so it seemed easier to stick to email with attachments.  We also decided, for the time being, that the scoring guide currently in use was adequate.

The committee is still concerned about the number of entries submitted for the award.  Realizing that teachers feel pressure related to Average Yearly Progress in the No Child Left Behind Act, we all committed to publicizing the program through our respective jobs and committees.  We are also interested in knowing how to locate other teachers who would be interested in serving on the committee.  The members will meet in Indianapolis to finalize topics for the 2005 impromptu topic.  The committee is grateful to Millie Davis for providing all of us with important information about the committee's responsibilities and to her staff for handling the myriad details of the NCTE Writing Achievement Awards program.

Elinor L. Michel, Chair