Day 1

9:00 - 9:15

Welcome!

• Lenape means “original people,” the “first people,” the “true people.” When William Penn arrived to this land in 1682, there were some 8,000 Indigenous people here. Lenapehoking stretches from the Delaware River Valley to the lower Hudson River Valley (including Manhattan), covering all of New Jersey and Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York.

  • • Video: Reverend John Norwood reflects on Lenni-Lenape and Lenapehoking (Philadelphia: The Great Experiment)

    • Allyship with Lenape Tribal Nations (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends)

    • The original people and their land: The Lenape, pre-history to the 18th century (West Philadelphia Collaborative History Center)

9:15 - 9:45

Introductions and Virtual Circle Check In

• What's your name? What are your pronouns? Where and what grades do you teach? What else might you be doing on a Monday morning if you weren't at the ISI?

  • • Sharing your pronouns/asking people's pronouns is a valued practice showing respect for the people with whom you interact.

    • In 2016, the School District of Philadelphia released policy 252: "A student has the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that corresponds to the student’s gender identity.

• Put your name in a virtual circle to help us know who will share and when using the serial testimony protocol

  • • More about the protocol: Making space, taking time, sharing power (Mahabir, 2012)

9:45 - 10:10

Reflecting on Working Agreements

• During the asynchronous pre-institute discussions, we reflected on three proposed working agreements: fully engage, equitable discourse, and speak/write your truth

• In home groups, discuss how we might practically honor and instantiate these agreements; designate a reporter

• In whole group, share what your group discussed:

  • • Protocols and routines are useful (who speaks when, time, clear expectations and goals for discussions, getting to know each other)

    • Assume good intentions: We are working from our homes and our realities differ, so patience and understanding are crucial.

    • Keep multitasking to a minimum.

    • Challenge yourself: If you are a talker, do more listening. If you are a listener, share more.

    • Use "I" statements.

    • Less is more.

10:10 - 10:20

Break

10:20- 11:15

Practitioner Inquiry and Using Writing to Build an Inquiry Community

• Since 1986, the Philadelphia Writing Project’s Invitational Summer Institute (ISI) on Writing and Literacy has supported teachers in developing an inquiry stance on teaching practice.

• Today's focus question: What is (practitioner) inquiry? How do we use writing to build an inquiry community?

  • • Reading that discusses practitioner inquiry and inquiry as stance: Lytle, S. L. (2008). At last: Practitioner inquiry and the practice of teaching: Some thoughts on "Better." Research in the Teaching of English, 42(3), 373-379.

    • Reading that provides an example of practitioner inquiry in a Philadelphia school: Skilten Sylvester, P. (1994). Teaching and practice: Elementary school curricula and urban transformation. Harvard Educational Review, 64(3), 309-332.

    • Video: Dr. Susan Lytle discusses "inquiry as stance"

• Writing into the day: You may keep a journal. You might keep a running document. There will be time for sharing our writing publicly. But in this moment, we will be writing for ourselves.

  • • Reading that discusses why we write every day: Toussant, Molly (2007). Hey, Matt! There’s a reason why we write like every day. National Writing Project.

• Barrett shares her story, an inquiry sparked after her ISI experience

• Small group discussion in home group about what we wrote, begin with serial testimony

• Whole group writing: How can we use our inquiry community to, as Susan Lytle states in the video clip, “...understand what is possible”?

11:15 - 11:25 + afternoon

Closing and Afternoon Activities

• Add one word to a shared slide to describe how you are feeling after our first meeting.

• Journal groups

  • • A PhilWP ISI tradition

    • Small groups of teachers write daily and then convene to share their writing

    • Recommended for this summer: Write for 20 minutes, then meet together for 20 minutes using a platform that works for your group

• Reaction Sheet

• Preparing for Day 2:

  • • Review posts on the TPS Teachers Network

    • Readings:

      • Brazas, C., & McGeehan, C. (2020). What white colleagues need to understand: White supremacy doesn’t stop at the teachers’ lounge door. Teaching Tolerance, 64, 55-58.

      • Dankowski, T. (2020, February 28). Calling on co-conspirators: Bettina Love pushes for abolitionism in the education system at PLA2020. American Libraries.

      • Garcia, A., & O'Donnell-Allen, C. (2015). Introduction: What it means to pose, wobble, and flow. In Pose, wobble, flow: A culturally proactive approach to literacy instruction (pp. 1-15). Teachers College Press.