Framing my Argument and Word Choice

I am a big believer in the ideas George Lakoff has espoused concerning the abilities word choice creates for people to impact the way we perceive an issue. He had written a lot on how the Republican party has put significant effort into word choice to manipulate the way Americans think of and construct political issues. As I was writing I realized that this is something I also need to consider. It is common to refer to high poverty and minority students as, "at-risk" or requiring, "tolerance" but these terms imply that high poverty students are somehow deficient. Right now I am trying to get all my ideas out, but as I go back and critique what I have written it will be important to make sure my word choice and that of quoted academics reflects the appreciation for difference that I am trying to encourage in my argument.

Seeing Theory in Action

I was meeting with the principal at Wright Elementary and talking to her about staff development. For the past two years the district has reorganized the monthly, half day, staff development meetings so that teachers from all school meet according to their grade. Prior to this schools met at their own site and the principal and liason presented whatever topics the district wanted them to address. The principal at Wright sites this time, when the school met as a whole, as a critical part of the work she did in her first three years to pull up Wright's test scores. They did alot of work addressing poverty issues and other problems relevant to their school. The staff also covered the topics assigned by the district (at that time their was a big change in the reading program so most centered on that) but were able to do so in a way that was relevant to their school.
What I thought was the most interesting is hearing how the sense of community and team building was lost when they switched over to the staff development organization in place now. I think alot of teachers are growing more isolated in their classrooms at Wright, particularly because the staff meetings now provide very little time for interaction where teachers can discuss what they are doing in the classroom. It is interesting to hear how much this can change a schools potential for successful staff development.

Writing Decisions

I am working on writing now and running into some difficulty. I am trying to combine anecdotes from my time spent at Wright Elementary with research I have done. So far I am intertwining the two as I write. I can't decide if it would be more beneficial to begin the paper with an overall description of all my observations, or describe as they apply to my research. I am also considering breaking the paper into sections, with a relevant description from Wright at the begining of each. Any thoughts on structure would be helpful.