Need a great prompt for a math portfolio piece? Try this: "A fourth grade teacher has twenty- seven students. Each student needs to produce six pieces of writing for an assessment portfolio. Suppose that the average time spent in conferencing with the teacher for each portfolio piece is about one hour. If each school day has roughly four hours of instruction time and the teacher has only three years until retirement, can she finish this year's portfolios before she begins to draw from KTRS?"

It's bad enough to feel the pressure in such a self-contained classroom described above, but if you are a middle school or high school assessment-level language arts teacher, the problem may well multiply by a factor of six or seven.

While most of us agree that Kentucky's new evaluation process is a progressive step, the transition to portfolio assessment has presented a tremendous challenge. As a writing instructor and parent of elementary and middle school students, I have observed with great respect the effort expended in the past few years in local classrooms toward this transition. Even the teachers most committed to the advantages of portfolio assessment will admit that the greatest frustration is just finding time in the school day to conference each student through the process of each portfolio piece. I know of at least one assessment-level teacher who, during the "crunch" time in preparation of portfolios, keeps students after school and personally drives them home in order to get in the necessary conference time.

During the 1993-94 school year, I decided to explore some ways that higher education faculty could provide some support and service to our over-burdened colleagues at the assessment levels in public schools. Consequently, I coordinated a pilot project to organize a group of twelve volunteer "writing coaches" from the faculty and staff at Morehead State University to visit six host fourth- grade classrooms once or twice a week to help conference with students about their portfolio pieces. While some of the volunteers were writing teachers, some represented other disciplines but had completed training in holistic writing assessment.

The response from both volunteer coaches and host teachers was extremely favorable. The project, while limited in scope, suggested that we had discovered a very real need and an opportunity for genuine service that not only benefitted host teachers and their students but also taught us, as visitors, a great deal about the nature of the assessment process mandated by KERA and the difference portfolio preparation will make in our future students' writing.

During the second year of the project, we expanded the project with the help of a Morehead State University KERA/Teacher Education Program minigrant, and we discovered that volunteer writing coaches don't have to be university faculty members but can come from a very rich and largely untapped resource around every school--the community. Perhaps a description of our project will encourage you to explore the possibility of such a project in your school and community. For the past two years, the project has been underwritten by MSU's office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and we have expanded our invitation list to graduate and undergraduate students who are education or English majors or who have been recommended by faculty because of their writing skills, maturity, and interest.

Identifying and Preparing Coaches
When we decided to expand the pool of potential writing coaches to include not only appropriate university faculty and staff but also appropriately prepared or experienced members of the community and some students as well, we realized that the invitation should be fairly selective. Such individuals should possess a combination of teaching skills, interpersonal skills with the designated age groups, and a casual understanding of both the writing process and the holistic scoring criteria. While coaches are not involved in any way with assessment, some familiarity with the criteria serves them well in conferencing student writing and revision. Formal training in assessment is not necessary, however; more important qualifications would be an adequate level of literacy, interest, skill and patience in interacting with children.

A Volunteer Writing Coach Project is not limited to a college town. Most communities have a pool of individuals who meet the criteria mentioned above: retired or inactive educators, business and professional people (bankers, merchants, medical personnel, attorneys, librarians, clergy, journalists), and literate and motivated parents and grandparents. Caring and responsible community members frequently volunteer their time to coach and support Little League, soccer, and other extra- curricular activities. Why not challenge them to become writing or math coaches as well? Do we expect the elementary, middle and high school physical education teachers alone to be entirely responsible for the development of youth athletic ability, achievement and sports programs throughout the community? It's time we solicit the community for commensurate support of academic excellence as well.

After identifying a pool of potential coaches and inviting them to participate, we decided to address the other qualification, familiarity with the writing process and portfolio assessment, by offering plenty of support material and an orientation session conducted by the Outreach Coordinator with the Morehead Writing Project, originally Billie Slone, and now Angela Hilterbrand. During the one-hour workshop, the consultant provides materials about and a quick overview of the writing process, the nature of the portfolio and the holistic scoring guide, as well as advice on appropriate strategies for coaching revision. Coaches were assured that they need not worry about actual assessment, but that an understanding of the criteria merely provides direction in revision. The primary message of the orientation session is probably the assurance that the greatest accomplishment of the coaching experience is to motivate young writers by demonstrating that successful, literate adults really care about writing and are interested in students becoming better writers. Coordinating the Project

If you decide to develop a writing coach project, I would suggest soliciting a volunteer project coordinator who is not a host classroom teacher or even a writing coach. As our project director, I drafted the proposal and collaborated with the school district's Curriculum and Assessment Coordinator to identify and prioritize host classrooms. Each year I select and invite potential coaches and coordinate the orientation. I also match hosts' and coaches' schedules; prepare, with the help of the Morehead Writing Project's Outreach Coordinator, a packet of materials including conferencing tips and forms, log sheets for coaches and the students to record elements of and reactions to each conference, and an identifying name tag for each coach to wear to the classroom (we couldn't afford T-shirts and caps!); and send out assignments for the twenty to thirty coaches to begin visiting the twelve to fifteen target classrooms. We have usually visited five or six fourth grade classes, five or six eighth grade classes (including ACT, Chapter I and Special Education classes) and one alternative high school class. This year, we will shift from eighth to seventh grade and will visit a few more regular 12th grade classes. Eventually, we hope to expand to non-assessment level classrooms, but with a limited number of coaches, the assessment-level classes are the priority.

Coaches typically visit one or two classrooms each and volunteer from one to four hours per week. Host teachers determine whether each coach will focus on one or a few students or mingle among several. I monitor the progress of the project, collect copies of coaches' and students' logs, convene a closing evaluation session, and solicit written responses for compilation at the end of the project.

Funding the Project
The first year's pilot project was operated without funding, but subsequent years' budgets have been a modest $1000.00. About half of that goes toward the orientation luncheon and closing reception for hosts and coaches and perhaps for the compilation, editing and publication of reaction articles. For a school system or community without access to university-related funding, these expenses could be eliminated. If you wish to preserve the attraction of providing a meal for the group at the opening and closing sessions but without cost, maybe you could persuade volunteers to organize a potluck meal or reception. The necessary budget items include supplies and copy costs, which your school may be able to absorb. However, funding sources might include the PTO, academic boosters, and/or business and individual donations.

What follows is a part of the original proposal for our project. I offer it as a prototype which you or a volunteer project director may wish to adapt in proposing your own.

A. Objectives:
1. To develop a prototype for community support for the idea and practice of assessment through writing portfolios;
2. To demonstrate to student writers that adult role models value the aesthetic and practical significance of writing and portfolio development;
3. To increase the amount of one-on-one skilled conferencing with students through the writing process of each portfolio piece and thereby ease the tremendous burden which assessment level teachers currently face in guiding portfolio development;
4. To raise the awareness and appreciation of volunteer writing coaches for the significant progress that portfolio assessment contributes to student learning and writing skills;
5. To provide those who volunteer as writing coaches an opportunity to view firsthand the dynamics of learning through writing across the curriculum that have already shaped K-12 instruction and will increasingly affect higher education as well.

B. Activities:
1. Identify and prioritize, with the help of the school system's Curriculum and Assessment Coordinator, assessment-level classrooms to host the coaching project.
2. Invite, identify, train, and equip a pool of volunteer writing coaches from among interested and appropriately skilled university faculty and community members.
3. Coordinate schedules of individual coaches and host teachers to arrange one or two visits per week throughout the academic year to as many of the classrooms and individual students as possible with the number of volunteers available.
4. Measure the workability and effectiveness of the project by on-going monitoring of activities and by pre- and post-surveys of host teachers, participating students, and volunteer coaches.
5. Convene a seminar for hosts and coaches to discuss and evaluate the project.
6. Compile, edit, and publish a description of the model project and the written analyses or responses of participants involved.

C. Impact
The intended impact of this project is a five-fold benefit:
1. Genuine service to assessment-level teachers designed not only to ease the overwhelming burden of conferencing the writing process of hundreds of portfolio pieces, but also to identify and model effective coaching strategies;
2. Improvement of student writers' attitude and outcomes through extending their reading/responding audience and increasing external interest in their writing;
3. Development of a model for community involvement and adult role model support in the dynamics of education reform and writing achievement parallel to the kind of nurturing young people are accustomed to in athletics and other extra-curricular activities;
4. Demonstration of the creative leadership of Morehead State University in developing prototypical collaborative projects for the delivery of responsive service to the demands of implementing education reform.
5. Publication and dissemination of coaches' compiled contributions to the description and analysis of a model project suitable for replication.

While it is difficult to quantify the success of such a project, we have received some very positive feedback. Fourth/fifth grade host teacher Sharon Wheeler wrote at the end of the pilot project, "We are unanimous in our belief that a key element in successfully teaching the writing process to fourth and fifth graders is the time devoted to conferencing with them individually. Put simply, the more time spent with the students one on one, the better writers they become. The time you and your colleagues devoted to helping our students with their portfolio pieces greatly enhanced our efforts and added significantly to their writing skills." Eighth grade host teacher, Beverly Gilliam, wrote, "Thank you for allowing my class to be a part of this worthwhile endeavor. I appreciate any assistance that is available. Since portfolios are such an overwhelming responsibility, any help that I can receive is a godsend." She went on to quote one of her students: "My coach helped me so much. Not only did they give me new writing ideas, they helped me with the structure of my paper and showed me ways to improve and make my writing better." Another wrote, "On our last day together, our coach gave us a business card with their name and address on it. They said that they were going to write us often because we had become an important part of their life. They wanted us to write to them too. This moment was so special. I'll never forget it. I didn't want our time together to end."

A volunteer writing coach project won't cure arthritis, earn you a "Teacher of the Year" award, or guarantee 90% "Proficient" and "Distinguished" portfolios for your students. It won't even entirely solve the problem of how to be in twenty-seven places at one time. But it does offer at least three enticing possibilities: it can increase adult conference time for student writing, it can show young writers that someone other than their teachers care about their becoming better writers, and it can involve members of the community in a partnership to improve learning and achievement. Maybe that's enough.

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