ON COURSE
e g n a h C o …T d l r o W e h t
PA students and instructors worked with second-graders in a Lawrence classroom, as part of the Writing and Teaching to Change the World class. From the top: Tim Ossowski ’16; Angela Dolan ’16; English Instructor Lou Bernieri; and Katherine Wang ’17.
FreeImages.com/A. Hulme
riting, W s e n i b iration m p s o n C I r d a min t, an New Se ty Engagemen ni Commu
PA students have found Writing and Teaching to Change the World to be an exciting and challenging departure from their typical classes. “On the first day of class, we participated in a writing workshop,” recalls Lily Augus ’16. “I’ve learned the importance of sharing work, of getting feedback from peers, and of embracing my raw written work, knowing that there is always room for improvement. Mr. Bernieri and Ms. Cueto-Potts have high expectations but without high pressure.”
Photos by Gil Talbot
by Alessandra Bianchi
T
here’s snow on the ground and the temperature hovers in the 20s, but the atmosphere inside Room 109 couldn’t be warmer this January afternoon. Sunshine streams through the windows lighting up the 25 elementary school students sitting snugly in a circle, clasping clipboards and, at alternating decibels, sharing their thoughts. “I feel frozen and joyful.” “I feel amazed.” “I feel wind in my face.” “I hear at night some grasshoppers and my baby sister sing a song.” With each statement, a fluttering of congratulatory finger-snapping ricochets around the room—an act that makes the students smile, for the 14
Andover | Summer 2016
gesture feels more genuine and pleasingly illicit than standard applause.
Precisely 12 minutes earlier, as he does each week, Bernieri had given the young Lawrence students a writing The students in Room 109, who are prompt. Today’s was, “In the winter cheerfully writing, sharing, and snaptime in Lawrence, I see ____ and I see ping, are second-graders at South ____. I hear ____ and I hear ____. Lawrence East, where Andover stuI feel ____.” The PA students in the dents work each week as writing menroom knew this prompt was inspired tors with 150 children. The high school by Walt Whitman, the “grandfather of students are part of English 501AB spoken poetry.” Just a few days prior, Writing and Teaching to Change the in Bulfinch Hall, they had completed World, a new senior elective taught by a similar writing exercise imitating Tang fellows Louis Bernieri, longtime Whitman’s style: PA English instructor and Andover Bread Loaf outreach program founder, “I hear the mad scratching of graphite and Monique Cueto-Potts, Office of on the thin-lined paper.” Community Engagement (OCE) direc“I see the spare look of the farmer as he tor. Novel in format, the course is a hopes to keep his crops alive.” collaboration among PA’s Department of English, OCE, the Lawrence Public “I see banana pancakes in my near Schools, and other Lawrence commu- future.” nity organizations.
The logistics of meeting weekly in Lawrence brings its own challenges such as bus transportation and photo releases for each youngster. However, the purpose of the course—to build an educational bridge between these two communities—far outweighs the difficulties and brings numerous benefits to kids in Lawrence and Andover alike. PA students hone their writing skills, learn about educational theory and practice, and have the opportunity to share this knowledge—in an ageappropriate manner—with the secondgraders in Lawrence. “There’s an educational and environmental divide in America now,” says Bernieri. “This course enables both the Phillips and Lawrence kids to see that deep down, they are not much different from one another.” Bernieri attributes his lifelong interest in urban education to growing up in an immigrant community in Brooklyn, N.Y. Similarly, CuetoPotts has focused her professional life on issues of educational equity and social justice. A former public school teacher in New York City and Lynn, Mass., she now relishes helping PA
students figure out the roles that community engagement and activism will play throughout their lives. Veteran Lawrence second-grade teacher Kathleen Loughlin, who has collaborated on community writing programs with Bernieri for more than 25 years, says this class allows her students “to use their own ideas, to have a voice in their writing and to not be afraid. The benefits carry over to their other work. They’re much more ready and confident,” she says.
“Getting PA students out of the Andover bubble is a win-win. The Phillips kids end up learning as much as the Lawrence students.”
—Lou Bernieri
PA English instructor and Andover Bread Loaf program founder
On this January afternoon, as if on cue, one of the second-graders illustrates the teacher’s point magnificently. Dressed in a silver glittery T-shirt, navy skirt, and a bright lavender sweater cinched at her waist, 8-year-old Arianni boldly reads aloud her writing for the day. Her last line concludes: “I feel free to be unique.” Alessandra Bianchi is a lifelong learner and writer based in Marblehead, Mass.
Andover | Summer 2016
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