Summary: Through its local Writing Project sites and national programs, NWP awards badges to recognize educators’ various skills and accomplishments connected to Writing Project work. This collection identifies and explains currently open badges that Writing Project sites can award and/or participants can receive. View the public criteria that viewers see connected to a badge and the guidance criteria that help Writing Project sites decide to award a badge.
Through its local Writing Project sites and national programs, the NWP awards badges, or micro-credentials, to recognize educators’ various skills and accomplishments connected to Writing Project work. Most badges can be awarded by local Writing Project sites, but others are connected to national programs and are awarded by staff and national leaders.
In this collection, we identify the currently available badges that NWP and Writing Project sites can award and provide two types of criteria: guidance criteria and public criteria. Guidance criteria provide more detail and explanation to guide leaders in awarding the badge. Look for the guidance criteria when deciding whether to award a badge. Public criteria, which are briefer, are short explanations summarizing a badge for external individuals. These are the explanations that are visible when someone outside the network seeks information on a badge. When an external viewer clicks on a badge, it will call up the public criteria.
The Teacher-Consultant Badge
Central to the NWP model is the Teacher-Consultant Badge. This badge signifies that the individual is a member of a local Writing Project site and has joined that project through a program or programs shaped by the Six Social Practices of the NWP model. Typically, the program in question is the Invitational Leadership Institute or Summer Institute, but other models are also possible. Writing Project sites can build this badge into their ongoing leadership programs, but they may also choose to award the Teacher-Consultant Badge to their existing TCs, as far back as they wish.
Additional Badges: C3WP, Writing Assessment, and badges in classrooms
Additional badges are associated with specific NWP programs such as C3WP or are in development for recognizing leaders who have been active with NWP’s Writing Assessment work. C3WP badges were first made available in May 2020. Writing Assessment Badges were first awarded in Summer 2020. All available badges will be issued through the NWP Dashboard.
But badging doesn’t begin and end with NWP professional development. Once Writing Project sites begin to award badges, teachers are likely to wonder how badging might play out in their classrooms or programs. Check out this companion collection where NWP leaders reflect on taking the badge idea into their classrooms.