MIDDLEBURY, VT -- The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded a grant of $1,206,100 to Middlebury College for the project "Bread Loaf in the Cities," to establish an urban education network in Columbus, Ohio; Lawrence, Massachusetts; Greenville, South Carolina; and a fourth city to be named this fall. This project combines summer graduate study for teachers and administrators at Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English, training in telecommunications to support the network and allow for the creative use of technology in individual classrooms, and year-round consultation and support among the participants and Bread Loaf faculty and staff.

Each summer for three years, starting in 2002, up to 28 teachers and administrators from selected schools in each of the four cities will be offered fellowships to take graduate courses in literature, practitioner research, the teaching of writing, creative writing, and theater arts for six weeks at the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont (see related article). Fellowship recipients can then apply for a second and third summer at any of Bread Loaf's four campuses: in Middlebury, Oxford University, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Juneau, Alaska.

In the first year Bread Loaf in the Cities teachers will be chosen from one anchor school in each city. While they are at Bread Loaf, they will plan workshops and cross-school online exchanges to be carried out during the following academic year, and they will learn how to use technology for their own professional education, to sustain and extend the network, and to improve student achievement. After their summer at Bread Loaf they will invite fellow teachers and administrators to join in collaborative projects, and their schools will form partnerships with two additional schools in their cities. The result will be clusters of three schools in each city working collaboratively for reform. Each cluster of schools brings successful experience in particular programs and initiatives, which will be distributed across the network. Teachers, students, and administrators in Bread Loaf in the Cities schools will become part of the larger Bread Loaf Teacher Network, engaging in networked teaching and learning, collaborative action research, and writing for electronic and print publication. About 300 teachers and 6,000 students have participated in networked activities in 2000-2001.

Dr. William Harner, Supterintendent of the School District of Greenville County; Richard McClure, Principal of Mauldin High School (see news article); and several Greenville middle and high school teachers who are active members of the South Carolina Bread Loaf Teacher Network contributed in significant ways to designing this program, which will provide more than $100,000 in fellowships and outreach support over the term of the grant to Greenville County teachers. The Bread Loaf in the Cities program will take place in context of a growing partnership supported by the South Carolina Department of Education, the Governor's Institute for Reading, the School District of Greenville County, the Strom Thurmond Institute of Clemson University, and the Bread Loaf School of English. Dr. Robert Becker, Director of the Strom Thurmond Institute, will serve as consultant to Bread Loaf in the Schools.

The South Carolina Bread Loaf Teacher Network includes as active members 20 South Carolina middle and high school teachers, about 2000 students in South Carolina schools, and a number of administrators. South Carolina Bread Loaf Teacher Network will co-sponsor two five-day workshops in June 2001 on "Improving Teaching with Technology", one to be held at Clemson University and one to be held at Mauldin High School (contact carolyn_benson@BreadNet.middlebury.edu). The Bread Loaf Teacher Network is content-based, with emphasis on teachers as scholars, leaders, and agents of change.

For more information, contact James Maddox, Director, Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, Middlebury VT 05753 at 802-443-5418 or by e-mail at: blse@breadnet.middlebury.edu