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LAWRENCE – If you visit a state park this spring and summer, you will be offered a literary entrée into nature, as well — a free, illustrated book of poetry inspired by our fine feathered friends, the birds. Last year, Humanities Kansas commissioned Megan Kaminski, University of Kansas professor of English, to edit and co-write the chapbook “Words of a Feather,” illustrated by artist Brad Sneed. The nonprofit organization has now printed 3,000 copies, half of which will be distributed to state parks, where a copy will be placed in every cabin and welcome center.
KU’s Project WRITE helps struggling learners improve writing skills
LAWRENCE — A new body of research from the University of Kansas has found that a new program is highly effective at helping teachers use technology to improve the writing skills of students, especially those with disabilities, as well as save educators time and give them new tools to assess learners’ progress.
School of Architecture & Design introduces the 80+40 Lecture series
LAWRENCE — The final KU Architecture Lecture Series event of the 2021 spring semester will mark the first lecture supported by a new fund created by Department of Architecture Class of 1980 alumni, who raised more than $100,000. The 80+40 Lecture Series will begin with an online presentation by architectural scientist and building technology researcher Mae-ling Lokko at 11:30 a.m. Friday, April 16.
KU students win national Debater of the Year, Graduate Student Coach of the Year awards
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas student Azja Butler, of Lansing, was named the winner of the National Debater of the Year Award and assistant coach Jyleesa Hampton was named the winner of the Graduate Student Coach of the Year Award by the Cross Examination Debate Association at an awards ceremony April 11.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
Kansas bird book aims to inspire wonder, reciprocity
LAWRENCE – If you visit a state park this spring and summer, you will be offered a literary entrée into nature, as well — a free, illustrated book of poetry inspired by our fine feathered friends, the birds.
Last year, Humanities Kansas commissioned Megan Kaminski, University of Kansas professor of English, to edit and co-write the chapbook “Words of a Feather,” illustrated by artist Brad Sneed. The nonprofit organization has now printed 3,000 copies, half of which will be distributed to state parks, where a copy will be placed in every cabin and welcome center.
The Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund is supporting the distribution of copies across Douglas County.
“Interest in the book has exceeded expectations, so we opened a competitive application for Kansas cultural organizations to receive copies,” said Leslie VonHolten, director of grants and outreach at Humanities Kansas. “We will announce those sites soon. This is the first time Humanities Kansas has published a poetry book like this. It’s exciting to see the interest out there for it.”
Kaminski has long considered birds and other nonhuman animals and plants her companions, and she expressed that in her poetry and research. That’s why VonHolten reached out to her with the idea for the project, Kaminski said.
“Like many of us during the pandemic lockdown, I think Leslie was spending more time at home and outside,” Kaminski said. “She came up with the idea of this book and thought of me and the work that I was doing to help people facilitate connections with and within our own ecosystems… and to help build practices that allow us to see other-than-human animals as sentient beings, as persons, worthy of our respect, reverence and attention.”
Kaminski said VonHolten asked her to include Emily Dickinson’s famous “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” but left the rest to her. Kaminski decided that she would write one poem, and to include one by the late, renowned nature poet Mary Oliver and one by the late, Kansas-based poet Ronald Johnson. Then she reached out to seven other living poets from Kansas or with Kansas connections and asked them to contribute.
“In setting parameters for poets, I focused on the idea of connection,” Kaminski said, “of seeing birds as a way to reawaken our sense of wonder with the natural world, and a sense of reverence, kindness and love that results from seeing ourselves in relation with the birds we interact with daily.”
The author said while most people like both birds and poetry, “they also are subjects that people often feel like they need specialized knowledge to appreciate … and I wanted to create access for people, to create an invitation to enjoy poetry and to interact with the birds in our lives and through the poems – to maybe eliminate some of those perceived barriers.”
One of the Kansas poets Kaminski engaged was Ignacio Carvajal, assistant professor in KU’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese, whose untitled poem celebrates the mockingbird in a combination of English, Spanish and K‘iche’, the latter being an Indigenous Central American language that he teaches.
“I was really excited to have a poem from Ignacio especially given his long relationship with Kansas birds,” Kaminski said, “and it was a delight when Ignacio wrote a poem that engages across multiple languages and perhaps is also an invitation to the significant Spanish-speaking population of Kansas.”
In keeping with the theme of connection and the book’s focus on Kansas, Kaminski said, Sneed’s illustrations “are all birds you can see in your backyard or down the street or in your neighborhood. They might provide an inspiration for learning more about the birds around us, but the chapbook is meant to be a start, not a complete survey.”
The poems and illustrations give readers a chance to contemplate the birds and our relationship to them at a slow pace. If people will take a moment to engage in that contemplation, Kaminski said, they are likely to find it rewarding. It might even ultimately benefit the environment, she said.
“When we pay attention to and feel grateful for other beings in our life, that’s an opening for reciprocity and care,” the poet said. “If I begin to recognize the birds that live in my surroundings, I begin to learn their names and their habits and understand how they live in relation to others. And we see their songs and presence as gifts, as an integral part of our own lives. Then we start to think about ‘What can I give back to support them?’”
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
KU’s Project WRITE helps struggling learners improve writing skills
LAWRENCE — A new body of research from the University of Kansas has found that a new program is highly effective at helping teachers use technology to improve the writing skills of students, especially those with disabilities, as well as save educators time and give them new tools to assess learners’ progress.
Researchers in KU’s Center for Research on Learning, Life Span Institute and School of Education & Human Sciences received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs in 2014 to boost writing skills for middle school students with disabilities. Among the tools developed by the program was Project WRITE, which helps teachers formatively assess which students might need additional support and provides research-backed interventions to monitor progress and improve writing skills aligned with effective technology tools such as word prediction. The researchers have published a series of journal articles showing data that proves the progress monitoring tool is highly effective.
The research team gathered five years of data from teachers and schools using Project WRITE, which includes a progress monitoring system and a professional learning website. Teachers used WRITE to derive information on student progress every two weeks among middle school learners. The data showed marked improvement in multiple areas of writing, especially for students with intellectual and learning disabilities. The progress monitoring tool saved teachers hours of manually assessing writing samples. Teachers can give students a three-minute writing assignment, quickly have the samples analyzed, identify which students need further assistance and recommend specific strategies to help specific areas of writing skill.
“This system is capable of making recommendations to a teacher on what kind of support a given student might need and provides recommendations that teachers can consider to improve a specific skill,” said Amber Rowland, associate research professor in KU’s Center for Research on Learning and courtesy associate professor of special education. “Teachers love how the tool auto-scores writing samples and produces graphs and trendlines which can be used in one-on-one conversations about writing with students. Being a good writer is more than just spelling or grammar. Our tool serves as a springboard for teachers and students to discuss individual strengths, barriers to learning and the interventions needed to become a stronger writer.”
In one article, authors detailed how Project WRITE can support six traits of writing: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. It also details how it provides tools to address each specific trait, where such supports can be located and how they can be used. Another article outlines the tool’s effectiveness in addressing writing challenges such as idea generation, planning, handwriting and/or spelling, grammar and mechanics, writing genres, motivation, writing strategies and revising.
While Project WRITE and its progress monitoring tool have proven effective for teachers supporting Individual Education Plans for students with disabilities, they are also timely, working in both virtual and in-person settings.
“After the pandemic, when students have been learning in a variety of settings, we’ve found that being able to learn and assess virtually has its advantages,” said Sean Smith, professor of special education, the project’s principal investigator and one of the co-authors. “But we’ve also found the tool is effective for in-person learning and has the benefit of maximizing time for teachers and students, which has previously been an element of concern in teaching writing.”
Writing instruction has been challenging for a wide variety of teachers for many years, and its instruction was widely neglected during the No Child Left Behind era, researchers said. Its instruction has received new emphasis in the New Common Core Standards, and a large body of research shows the benefits of writing skills for student development, including college and career readiness. The recent research publications also highlight how it can be used in different subjects.
“We’ve found writing is integral to all subject areas, but not all teachers are comfortable teaching writing,” Rowland said. “Especially for learners who struggle, it helps teachers assess their progress and provide tools for improvement. Asking students to tell what they know is something all teachers do, and our tool can help them do so through improved writing.”
Project WRITE is available to schools across the country. To use the tool, contact Sean Smith by email. The research team will continue to evaluate its effectiveness and assist teachers and schools in its implementation. Journal articles on its effectiveness have been published in the journals Inclusion, Journal of Special Education Technology and Intervention in School and Clinic, and another is forthcoming in Teaching Exceptional Children. Rowland and Smith co-wrote the articles with Bruce Frey and Naheed Abdulrahim of KU and Alisa Lowrey with the University of Southern Mississippi.
“We’re trying to help educators use the best possible technology for learning,” Smith said. “You might think, a year into the pandemic, that technology isn’t an issue, but we know from teachers that they are looking for specific technologies and strategies they can use to really benefit their students, especially those who struggle, and Project WRITE is proving it can do that in a number of settings.”
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Contact: Dan Rolf, School of Architecture & Design, 785-864-3027, [email protected], @ArcD_KU
School of Architecture & Design introduces the 80+40 Lecture series
LAWRENCE — The final KU Architecture Lecture Series event of the 2021 spring semester will mark the first lecture supported by a new fund created by Department of Architecture Class of 1980 alumni.
Launched in 2019, the 80+40 Lecture campaign was developed by Class of 1980 alumni Becky Cotton, Mark Hugeback and Bill Quatman to commemorate the passage of 40 years after graduation and to give back to the institution that provided the educational foundation for their professional lives in architecture. The group envisioned a fund that could be used to bring leading voices to campus each year to introduce students to vital issues in architectural design, research and practice, and give students the chance to interact with these leaders in lectures, discussions and workshops.
“I’ve always been indebted to KU for the architecture education it gave me,” Quatman said. “We all feel that way. We also recognize that funding is tight for all universities right now, and we wanted to make certain future students get the opportunities we had. One of the things that made our five years memorable were visits by some of the nation’s and world’s finest architects. They came to campus, gave lectures and went into our studios to work on projects with us and give us tips.”
Cotton, Hugeback and Quatman started the fundraising effort by collectively committing $30,000, then reached out to their classmates via social media. The campaign successfully reached and surpassed its $100,000 goal during fall 2020. The 80+40 Lecture was established as an annual series hosted within the School of Architecture & Design’s ongoing Architecture Lecture Series.
The first 80+40 Lecture will feature architectural scientist and building technology researcher Mae-ling Lokko at 11:30 a.m. Friday, April 16. Lokko’s work centers on the upcycling of agrowaste and biopolymer materials into high performance clean building material systems. Due to current public health restrictions, the lecture and associated workshop originally planned to happen on campus will now take place on Zoom.
In lieu of the opportunities that in-person instruction can provide, Architecture Lecture Series faculty curators worked with Lokko to create a hands-on learning experience that utilizes technology to bridge physical distance and demonstrate the remote collaboration that is accelerating in the architecture and design professions. 80+40 Lecture funds were utilized to provide material research kits to students and for the school to acquire the technology to analyze these materials.
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Contact: Scott Harris, KU Debate, 785-864-9878, [email protected], @KansasDebate
KU students win national Debater of the Year, Graduate Student Coach of the Year awards
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas student Azja Butler, of Lansing, was named the winner of the National Debater of the Year Award and assistant coach Jyleesa Hampton was named the winner of the Graduate Student Coach of the Year Award by the Cross Examination Debate Association at an awards ceremony April 11.
The Brian Johnston National Debater of the Year Award is designed to recognize a student who demonstrates competitive success and a commitment to represent the highest values of the debate community. Last week Butler won the top individual debater award at the National Debate Tournament.
“Azja earned this recognition from the college debate community based not only on her outstanding debate skills but also because of her character and commitment to the ideals of the community,” said Scott Harris, the David. B. Pittaway Director of Debate at KU. “She is an individual who applies her debate skills to public advocacy to make the community around her a better place.”
Butler is the president of KU Forensics and the Jayhawker Liberation Front. She is a member of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Responsible Public Safety and has been actively involved for the past year in several community projects focused on race relations at KU and in the larger community.
“We are very proud of Azja’s accomplishments both inside and outside of debate,” said Brett Bricker, associate director of KU Debate.
Butler is the third KU debater to win the National Debater of the Year Award, joining Hampton (2015) and Kenny Delph (2020) as winners of the prestigious recognition.
The Matt Grindy Outstanding Graduate Student Coach Award is intended to recognize a graduate student who demonstrates excellence in coaching as well as in their professional and graduate obligations. Hampton debated for KU, completed a master’s degree in communication studies at KU and is currently a doctoral student in public administration at KU. She has been an assistant coach at KU for the past six years. During the awards ceremony a number of current and former debaters expressed how much effect Hampton has had on making them better debaters and better people.
“Jyleesa is an amazing debate coach and an amazing person who has had a tremendous impact on the KU debate program,” Harris said.
Several other KU students received recognition from the Cross Examination Debate Association. Butler and Nate Martin were both named members of the All-American Debate Team. Last week they finished as the first- and second-place individual speakers at the National Debate Tournament. Ross Fitzpatrick, Nate Martin, Jimin Park, Michael Scott and Jet Semrick were all recognized as members of the All-Academic Debate Team.
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