Goals and Mission
The National Writing Project began in 1973 as the Bay Area Writing Project at the University of California at Berkeley. The National Writing Project model is designed to improve student writing and learning by improving the teaching of writing in the nation's schools. The National Writing Project has now grown to an international network of over 160 sites that reach approximately 100,000 teachers a year.
Educators who have proven to use effective methods in the teaching of writing are identified and invited to attend our Invitational Summer Institute, which is based on the original National Writing Project model of teachers-teaching-teachers. The institute is comprised of 5 weeks of intensive study and workshopping.
Fellows who have been through the institute join the writing project team to conduct project-sponsored staff development programs and in-school workshops to better the teaching of writing in the area.
All National Writing Project sites focus
on the four major goals of the National Writing Project:
1. To improve student writing and learning in kindergarten through university
classrooms;
2. To extend the uses of writing in all disciplines;
3. To provide schools, colleges, and universities with an effective professional
development model;
4. To identify, celebrate, and enhance the professional role of successful
classroom teachers.
As one of 4 sites in the state of Colorado, we seek to further the National Writing Project's goal of promoting exemplary instruction of writing in every classroom in America.
Other Colorado branches of the NWP:
Colorado State University Writing Project
Southern Colorado Writing Project
Sara McIntosh-Dale and Deirdre Jones on Writing Retreat, July 2005
