Resiliency and Caterpillars

By Rebecca Powell

At the 2001 Live Oak Writing Project inaugural summer institute, the participants wrote a poem, a birth announcement. In the poem, they wrote “Like the mighty oak, we will remain resilient, weather the storms, and stand the test of time.” Born from the dedication of Elaine White, Frances Weiler, and Mary Kay Dean, the Live Oak Writing Project committed itself to fostering teacher connections and improving teacher practice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

Four years later, Hurricane Katrina struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Live Oak Writing Project teachers lost homes and libraries, classrooms and students. The resiliency envisioned by the inaugural poem was tested.  

Outside my office window stands the Friendship Oak, a 500+ year old Live Oak, who has stood through Mississippi’s many hurricanes. In its broad branching limbs, over 500 species of caterpillars make their homes. In 2005 when Katrina hit, Live Oak Writing Project was a baby writing project in the much bigger network of the National Writing Project and that network kept the project alive.  I write this remembrance on a desk donated to Live Oak by the National Writing Project after Hurricane Katrina.  

Catherine Tibbs, a former beloved director of the project, remembers the national convention immediately following Hurricane Katrina and the kindness of the National Writing Project staff. Elaine and Catherine were conflicted about whether to attend because of the continuing cleanup after the storm. National Writing Project staff urged them to attend and insisted that Live Oak would not disappear with Katrina.  

Catherine remembers the convention as a welcome respite from the disaster zone they now called their lives. When their physical homes became disasters, the larger network where Live Oak teachers found like-minded thinking partners gave them a place to belong and a desk to plan their resurgence.   

From that desk, Live Oak has planned writing institutes, assignment bootcamps, standards seminars, assessment workshops, student writing camps, and mentoring programs. The original needs articulated by Elaine White, Frances Weiler and Mary Kay Dean, for teachers to work with other teachers to improve writing pedagogy and explore their own writing practices remains, and Live Oak continues to find ways to meet those needs.  

Twenty-four years from its founding, the Live Oak Writing Project remains a place where teachers rely on each other, hone their craft, and find their people. We make each other better teachers and people. I chafe a bit at education’s rush to champion resiliency. Wouldn’t it be better to improve students’ material lives, so they need not be so resilient? However, when I think of the founders of the Live Oak Writing Project creating this site, promising resiliency, I understand their promise as a promise made with the support of a national network of people who care about teaching, writing, and students.  

The Live Oak Writing Project was named after the Friendship Oak outside my office window, its outline our logo, but I would like to amend the logo with 500 squiggly lines of caterpillars. Live Oak is not the ancient tree; we are a species of caterpillar making our home in the tree of the National Writing Project, long may it weather the storm.