Questions from the audience

What are the goals for the 30-1 course?

Why writing only about literature in the secondary ELA course?

What happens when the test corporation/ministry decides for the students what they will write about? This kills passion for writing, and so they don’t invest themselves in their writing. Ultimately, this means we really don’t know how well they write.

Portfolios are the answer–they give a much better sense of how well students write.

How do we quantify aspects of writing like “passion”? This is a requirement of accreditation reviews.

David Jolliffe: Common core standards lead to a standard test. Personal writing is not a value of the standard tests used in the US. Passion doesn’t figure into it.

Breadth of figues in the conversations: how did you deal with power dynamics and hierarchies within the educational system?

Bob Broad: local decisions matter

Similar project happening in Buffalo, NY