The Reading and Writing Project celebrated its Fiftieth Saturday Reunion on April 25. Speakers at the event included poets and authors Karla Kuskin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Vera B. Williams, and Jacqueline Woodson.

Other speakers included Steven Levy, an author and recipient of the Disney Company's 1994/95 Outstanding Elementary Teacher award, and Carol Gilligan, a well-known psychologist and professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

The more than 80 workshops held throughout the day focused on a wide variety of reading and writing issues.

Sessions included topics from "Improving the Quality of Primary Students" to "Writing to Change the World: An Inquiry in Political and Social Action."

Lucy McCormick Calkins, Professor of English Education and Director of the Reading and Writing Project, told the audience in her closing remarks, "Our classrooms are not filled with success stories alone."

She continued, "It is necessary to think about difficulty because teaching gets its energy from the problems."

Calkins compared the role of a teacher to that of a writer. She said that as the authors of their classrooms, teachers are waiting expectantly for something to happen.

As in stories, problems in our work, she said, are the opportunities to learn and grow, not to give up hope. "To choose teaching," she explained, "is to choose hope and faith in kids and in the profession."

Published Friday, Jun. 7, 2002