Dr. Floris Wilma Ortiz-Marrero gave a powerful keynote address to the Western Massachusetts Writing Project on Saturday on the topic of language, power, and teaching to all students, particularly those whose second language is English. Wilma is the 2010 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and a fearless and tireless advocate for English Language Learner students. She is also a longtime leader in the National Writing Project’s ELL Network.

Here, Wilma advocated for recognizing the authenticity of the cultural values and languages that students bring to the classroom, and use those understands as the underpinning for learning. Wilma urges all of us to open our eyes to possibilities, and even shares a few anecdotes of her own stumbles in the classroom (including a funny exchange in which she wanted her students to talk about what makes a good “speaker” but one of her students assumed she meant music speakers, not human speakers.)

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin