"You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page."
-Jodi Picoult
Working as partners, universities and schools can articulate and promote effective school reform.
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Teachers are the best teachers of teachers; successful practicing teachers have greater credibility with their colleagues than outside experts.
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Successful teachers of writing can be identified and--while sharing their expertise--be prepared to teach other teachers.
Writing is as fundamental to learning in science, mathematics, and history as it is to learning in English and the language arts.
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Writing needs constant attention and repetition from the early grades through university.
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As the process of writing can best be understood by engaging in the process, teachers of writing should write.
Real change in classroom practice does not happen all at once, but rather, over time.
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What is known about the teaching of writing comes not only from research but from the practice of those who teach writing.
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The National Writing Project, by promoting no single “right” approach to the teaching of writing, allows a critical examination of a variety of approaches from a variety of sources.
What We Do
The National Writing Project of Acadiana, previously known as the Acadiana Writing Project (AWP), is a university-school partnership that has three major goals:
(1) to improve the teaching of writing at all levels,
(2) to improve professional development programs for teachers, and
(3) to improve the professional standing of teachers.
Summer Writing Institute
In early spring the NWP-A identifies and recruits exemplary teachers for the annual invitational writing institute.
The participants are selected from a pool of applicants who provide a writing sample, a professional profile, and a personal interview. The 15 - 20 Fellows accepted into the program are master teachers who have a successful teaching career in progress.
Continuity Activities
Throughout the school year all NWP-A Teacher Consultants are invited to participate in monthly activities related to writing and its teaching.
These occasions typically involve gatherings such as the following: Coalition Meetings, Annual Spring Reception, Fall Writing Retreat, Festival of Writers, Monthly NWP-A Teacher Consultant Council Meetings, Writing Response and Reading Groups
Professional Staff Development
Individual schools or whole parishes invite NWP-A Teacher Consultants to present series of five or ten workshops on a wide variety of topics, such as Implementing the Writing Process, Using Classroom Portfolios, Evaluating Student Writing, Getting Student Writers to Revise, and The Place of Grammar in the Composition Class.
In addition to the professional development workshops sponsored by the schools, the NWP-A provides a wide array of other programs to serve teachers and schools, including open enrollment summer mini-institutes, teacher research groups, professional reading groups, and support systems for new teachers.