Professional Development: The National Writing Project

The National Writing Project is a professional development network for teachers whose mission is to improve learning in our nation’s schools by improving the teaching of writing. Their professional development programs promote teacher collaboration as the way to understand how student writing develops writing across grades and subject areas. The National Writing Project currently has over 200 sites in all 50 states and provides professional development to over 100,000 teachers annually.

The centerpiece of the National Writing Project’s teacher training is a summer institute hosted by each of the sites in their network. The individual sites develop their own curriculum while still adhering to the National Writing Project’s philosophy of teachers teaching teachers. Some of these sites, such as the Little Rock Writing Project in Arkansas, have begun to include workshops on student publishing. Paula Kerr, the Coordinator for Youth Programs for the Little Rock Writing Project explains: “One of the reasons we made it a big part of our summer institute is because most teachers don’t publish with their students. We’ve found that once we introduce them to it, they do it.” Shari Williams, a reading specialist and art teacher at Benton High School, as well as the co-director of the Little Rock Writing Project, has led some of the publishing workshops at her site. She agrees that teachers have very little experience with publishing but are very open to the possibilities it creates. “You know how you give teachers ideas, and they just go with them,” said Shari.

One example of how Shari encouraged the teaching of writing across the curriculum came after she led a workshop on bookmaking. A science teacher took what Shari had showed them and created a field journal out of a paper bag. “It folds over and makes pockets so that if you were going out to gather wildflowers you have the pockets that the bag forms, and you would sit down and write about where you found it and what it looks like.”

Another science teacher Shari trained used bookmaking as a way to teach the compare and contrast essay. Students study rocks, and they write down their research in their field book. “It kind of becomes a special place. They are doing some scientific research and writing in their book about rocks. They aren’t writing on a piece of notebook paper, but the teacher is trying make them write a compare and contrast essay.”