AUTHOR: Zac Chase
FROM THE BLOG: Teacher Zac Chase examines traditional “get to know you” writing assignments to tease out their primary goals, and explores how we could reimagine those assignments to better meet those goals, incorporating collaboration, student inquiry, and transparency.
Author: National Writing Project
AUTHOR: Debbie Bell
FROM THE BLOG: When teachers hear the term “professional development,” they often think of long mandatory days of listening to speakers and administrators talk about issues that do not pertain to their teaching. I speak flippantly about these “workshops” because I endured them for over sixteen years as a middle school teacher before teaching on the university level. However, the more I work with teachers, especially through the writing project on campus, the more I realize that teachers truly want professional time to learn how to employ new pedagogical strategies to help their students. How do we, writing project sites, meet the needs of these teachers?
AUTHOR: Tom Fox
FROM THE BLOG: As a college teacher of writing, I was always uncomfortable with high school teachers asking me what they should do to prepare their students for postsecondary writing. After years of giving vague and unhelpful answers, I finally landed on a less vague, but still unhelpful answer: Don’t prepare students. Teach great high school writing and then when they get to college, I’ll teach college writing. For this reason, and to represent the expansive goals of the program, the College-Ready Writers Program is now College, Career, and Community Writers Program, or C3WP.
AUTHOR: Tanya Baker
FROM THE BLOG: As site leaders prepare for upcoming summer institutes, we wanted to share the newest titles on the NWP bookshelves related to writing: both teaching writing and supporting teacher-writers. We encourage you to think about these titles for your summer institute, for a book club, or for your writing group.
AUTHOR: Shirley McPhillips
FROM THE BLOG: It’s National Poetry Month! For inspiration, we have invited Shirley McPhillips, poet and NWP Writers Council member, to share some thinking about WHY poetry matters and HOW, as teachers and writers, we might jump into it.
AUTHOR: Jessica Early
FROM THE BLOG: When I think about my work with the Central Arizona Writing Project, Tracey Flores comes to mind. She came to my office after our first invitational summer institute in 2008 telling me, “Jessica, I have a good idea and I want to work with you and the Writing Project to make it happen.”
AUTHOR: Michael Thompson
(Mvskoke Creek)
FROM THE BLOG: “An important part of my life’s story has been finding my voice as a Native educator and as a teacher of Native students. Another story that has changed my life is the National Writing Project.”
AUTHOR: Bob Fecho
FROM THE BLOG: Education is about change. It is not a system of verification or confirmation. It is not a system of inheritance. Nor is it a system of replication. Education is about change—of minds, perspectives, values, understandings, meanings—really all the tools through which we construct reality and identity.