CGWP Teachers Named Teachers of the Year

Savannah, GA-March 24, 2004-The Georgia Council of Teachers of English (GCTE) named Patricia West, an English teacher from Tompkins Middle School, and Sharonda Johnson, an English teacher from Savannah High School, "Teachers of the Year" during its conference at Calloway Gardens in February. Both women are teacher consultants for the Coastal Georgia Writing Project (CGWP) at Armstrong Atlantic State University (AASU). The CGWP is the local chapter of the National Writing Project (NWP).

As teacher consultants, West and Johnson lead workshops for other teachers to improve how writing is taught in pre-kindergarten through college levels and therefore help improve the writing standards throughout coastal Georgia. The CGWP, established in 1991 at AASU, strives to improve the quality of teaching locally and, as partners with the NWP, on a national level.

Patricia West, a graduate of AASU, received her Master’s of Education in Secondary English from Georgia Southern University in 1996 and now teaches at Tompkins Middle School. She is currently taking supplementary graduate courses in secondary English at AASU. She has been a teacher consultant for the CGWP since 1993. In addition to consulting and organizing workshops, she coordinates the New Teacher Initiative program, and will be representing the CGWP in Philadelphia this April during the NWP’s Urban Sites Conference.

Sharonda Johnson, a tenth grade teacher at Savannah High School and a DeWitt-Wallace Pathways to Teaching Scholar, has also been a Teacher Consultant for the CGWP at AASU since 1997. She is a member of the leadership team for the New Teacher Initiative and the Urban Sites Network. As a teacher consultant, Johnson directs the Youth Summer Writing project. Additionally, she has represented the CGWP at the NWP’s Urban Sites Task Force in the past.