Columbia English Teacher Chelsea Dyer (pictured left), along with co-facilitators Shannon Spollen (Voorheesville) and Emily Mack-Hass (Guilderland), receiving the NYS English Council’s Collaborator of Excellence Award.
Columbia High School English Teacher Chelsea Dyer received the NYS English Council’s Collaborator of Excellence Award on Friday at the organization’s annual conference. She, along with two other local teachers, was recognized for facilitating a writing summer camp for high school students.
Ms. Dyer helped develop the Discovering Your Voice writing workshop at UAlbany each of the past two summers. The weeklong camp offers writing workshops for high school students in different disciplines such as personal narrative, sci fi/fantasy, playwriting and poetry.
Ms. Dyer and her co-facilitators Shannon Spollen (Voorheesville) and Emily Mack-Hass (Guilderland) run the camp and teach at it throughout the week.
Columbia English Teacher Chelsea Dyer received the NYS English Council’s Collaborator of Excellence Award on Friday. She and two other local teachers were recognized for facilitating a writing summer camp for high school students. @Columbia_HS_BD
Congratulations! pic.twitter.com/TnJIIBETER
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Each day, a different local author visits to discuss their writing style, publishing and to work with the students on their own projects.
“It gives kids opportunities for writing that they may not have in the traditional classroom,” said Ms. Dyer. “They can see there are different ways to publish writing and lets them see writing in a different way.”
The program from this past summer had 16 high school students participate, including three Columbia students.
Ms. Dyer said Discovering Your Voice will be offered again in July 2024. Registration information should be available in January.
Discovering Your Voice is part of the Capital District Writing Project, a community of educators working to enhance the teaching of writing in the Capital Region’s schools. It is located within UAlbany’s School of Education.