Sixteen Putnam County elementary and middle school teachers have recently completed a professional development series entitled, “Blowing Away the State Writing Assessment.”

The course, sponsored jointly by Putnam County Schools and the Central West Virginia Writing Project, focused on improving writing skills in all genres.

In keeping with Putnam’s push to incorporate 21^st Century skills and tools into classroom practice, teachers learned techniques to focus on the impact of language, to score compositions using rubrics, and to integrate the use of technology into writing instruction. According to series coordinator Linda Berg, “Teachers took advantage of new ideas, hands-on projects, websites, Power Point, clickers and other technology as well.”

The following teachers participated in the project:  Kristi Barker and Erica Drennan of Confidence Elementary; Kathy Chadwell and Jackie Jacobs of Conner Street Elementary; Debbie Cash of Eastbrook Elementary; Kristy Harless of Lakeside Elementary; Julie Marino and Karen Ward of West Teays Elementary; Marsha Brown of Winfield Elementary; Carol Bays, Carol Opperman, and Katie Thaxton of George Washington Middle; Mary Ann Allen of Hurricane Middle; and Michelle Burris, Tiffany Fellure, and Tina Myers of Winfield Middle.

Presenters for the course were Putnam teachers trained by the Central West Virginia Writing Project through Marshall University. They were Linda Berg of George Washington Middle, Natalie Dunn of Winfield Elementary, Susan Krichbaum of Winfield High, Missy Nash of Hurricane High, and Brenda McBrayer of Conner Street Elementary.

This course was the third such professional development series aimed at improving the writing proficiency of Putnam County teachers and students.