The National Writing Project

As more students began to attend college in the early 1970s, their struggles with writing became increasingly apparent. The Bay Area Writing Project began at the University of California Berkeley in 1974 as a positive, collaborative approach to helping students of all ages improve their writing. Twenty-five teachers of writing gathered at the UC Berkeley campus in a summer institute led by James Gray. That initial summer institute has grown into the National Writing Project, a professional development program dedicated to improving writing and learning in our nation's schools. NWP now has sites in 47 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico.

Each of the 161 NWP sites offers an intensive institute every summer and invites distinguished local teachers of writing from all grade levels, kindergarten - university, to attend. The institute focuses on these teachers, examining their exemplary classroom practices, supporting their work with research studies, and encouraging them to develop their own writing. These teachers serve as mentors for other teachers because they come directly from their own classrooms to lead professional development workshops. During the academic year, local NWP teachers give workshops for their colleagues in neighboring schools and districts. They also take advantage of the professional communities at their writing project sites, meeting frequently in continuity programs to study how best to reach every student.

Goals of the National Writing Project

• To improve student writing by improving the teaching of writing
• To improve university and school professional development programs for classroom teachers
• To increase the professional power of classroom teachers

Evaluation and Recognition

The Carnegie Corporation of New York evaluated the National Writing Project as the best large-scale effort to improve composition instruction now in operation in this country.

The National Endowment for the Humanities stated that the National Writing Project has been by fare the most efficient cost-effective project in the history of the Endowment's support for elementary and secondary education programs. The National Council of Teachers of English honored the National Writing Project as an exemplary national resources.

The Council for Basic Education stated that the National Writing Project is perhaps the most successful and certainly the most far-reaching of all the recent initiatives to improve the condition of writing. The National Writing Project is successful because it is helping teachers become competent writers themselves and thus be better teachers of writing.