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As the Director of the Connecticut Writing Project-Storrs, Jason Courtmanche will be blogging on issues related to teaching, writing, publication, composition studies, creative writing, American Literature, secondary education, higher education, technology, and any other related issue that might catch his interest.
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The Write Space a blog for teachers and writers affiliated with the Connecticut Writing Project

English - Writing, Teaching, Education
http://jasoncourtmanche.blogspot.com/
The Write Space · 3W ago

Teacher Appreciation Week

About this time of year, Amy and I both receive lots of thank you cards from students.  Amy got a beautiful note from a father the other day thanking her for all she did for his daughter. 
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The Write Space · 1M ago

Crawling to the Finish Line

The end of the semester insanity is upon me at UConn.  Do you remember those monster.com commercials from about six years ago?  They were shot in black and white and featured children talking about their dreams—e
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The Write Space · 1M ago

Ambition in the Afternoon

I used to enjoy having the same breaks as my wife and kids but now we are on different schedules.  Nonetheless, when Amy and the kids are on break, even though I still have to work, the pace of life and w
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The Write Space · 1M ago

Television and Other Guilty Pleasures

For years I have been trying to locate this interview with Norman Mailer in which the author defends television.  I don’t recall where I read it, but Mailer’s main point was that television was just a new form of stor
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The Write Space · 1M ago

McTeachers

Did you see that Windham teachers and PTO members raised funds for their school by working at the Mansfield McDonald’s?  It was called McTeacher’s Night.  A principal, several classroom teachers, and members of the PTO flipped burgers, scooped fries, and manned the drive-through window for two hour
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The Write Space · 1M ago

The Credibility Gap

I'm in DC this week lobbying for the National Writing Project, and I'll blog on this next week.  Meanwhile, I'm posting an op-ed I submitted to the Courant that they chose not to run. Governor Malloy talks a lot about the Achievement Gap in Connecticut.  His education reform plan, Senate Bill 24, i
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The Write Space · 2M ago

What Barbarians at the Gate?

Last Saturday I went to see Jeff Wilhelm speak at Rhode Island College. The Rhode Island Writing Project Conference was ostensibly on the Common Core, but Jeff was there in part to promote his new book, Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom. For those of you who don’t know Jeff or his work, Jeff
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The Write Space · 2M ago

Guarded Optimism

The good news is that the National Writing Project succeeded in being awarded federal funding for 2013. The NWP, along with the New Teacher Center and Teach For America, received a combined $24.6 million dollars in Supporting Effective Educators Development (SEED) grant funds, part of the 1.5% Titl
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The Write Space · 2M ago

The Case Against SB 24

If you didn’t get to see it, The Hartford Courant ran an op-ed piece by me on Sunday as the lead article on the front of their Sunday Opinion section. You can access it here: http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-op-courtmanche-ending-teacher-tenure-wrong-fix--20120226,0,5934612.story. It’s a de
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The Write Space · 3M ago

It Only Takes One

All these attacks on tenure are really getting me angry. I resent the implication that tenure makes us lazy and complacent and if we just eliminated it we’d all magically shape up or be shipped out. There’s relatively little discussion about professional development for teachers, especially those
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