Published: September 22, 2008 08:32 am      

Write to be successful

Work of Raceland freshman studied as model of excellence

RACELAND — Being a role model at 15 isn’t something Brandon Rogers ever expected.

But educators at a prestigious workshop plan to study his writing as a model for teaching students whose talent can’t be assessed by traditional methods.

Brandon and his freshman English teacher at Raceland-Worthington High School, Penny Holmes, also plan to write a book that will combine their perspectives on the electronic portfolio process.

When Brandon started the seventh grade, he was a typical middle-school kid, although perhaps brighter than most. But that was before he discovered writing.

He credits Holmes, his teacher that year, with opening a mental door. “It was just more fun that year. She made it different ... she let me go my own way and write what I wanted to.”

Holmes soon found out she had a prodigy on her hands. “He was an amazing writer. Instantly I could tell he had that gift, that creative spark.”

Her job wasn’t to teach him to write, it was to help him polish his raw talent into finished compositions. Brandon calls himself “the world’s most reluctant revisionist.” Holmes introduced him to the self-discipline that pares away verbiage and leaves literature.

The next year she recruited him as a writing mentor to the next crop of seventh-graders. Coaching them in creating movies from their poems, Brandon showed further talent in pairing images with words, Holmes said.

He discovered that making the movies was a natural offshoot of his creative process. “When I write, I’m looking at things in my head,” Brandon said.

Also, he loves computers about as much as he loves writing. He has made presentations on electronic portfolios at two state teacher conferences.

Now the Bread Loaf Teacher Network based at Middlebury College in Vermont is interested in studying his writing. Participants at a November conference, most of them academics from New England schools, colleges and universities, will examine one of Brandon’s pieces as part of their study of assessing student work, according to Bread Loaf co-director Dixie Goswami.

In an e-mail message, Goswami said she got her introduction to Brandon’s work at the 2007 Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference in Louisville:

“Four of Penny’s students presented their work to educators at all levels. All four of these students, in preparing writing to be included in electronic portfolios, had produced a number of pieces — from stories to poems to essays — that were beautifully written and thoughtfully presented,” Goswami said in the email.

The writing showed confident and skillful use of technology and demonstrated how they brought their skills to classroom assignments, Goswami wrote.

What educators hope to learn from Brandon and other similarly gifted students is how teachers can assess their work and encourage them to develop their talents further, Holmes said.

Just tossing them an “A” would be too easy and not fair to them, she believes.

The book they’re planning will explore the electronic portfolio process from both teacher and student perspectives. For each of her points, Brandon’s counterpoint will be invaluable, she said. “He’ll offer his opinion on how it helps to learn to write.”

They hope to market the book to teachers and writers.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.