A Brief History of the National Writing Project: James Gray and colleagues in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, established a university-based program for K–16 teachers called the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) in 1974. Little did they know then that their project would develop into The National Writing Project (NWP), an organization currently comprised o
f nearly 200 sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. As a former high school English teacher and teacher educator, Jim envisioned a professional development model for teachers that valued the knowledge, leadership, and best practices of effective teachers and promoted teachers sharing their knowledge with other teachers. they are:
• Teachers at every level—from kindergarten through college—are the agents of reform; universities and schools are ideal partners for investing in that reform through professional development.
• Writing can and should be taught, not just assigned, at every grade level. Professional development programs should provide opportunities for teachers to work together to understand the full spectrum of writing development across grades and across subject areas.
• Knowledge about the teaching of writing comes from many sources: theory and research, the analysis of practice, and the experience of writing. Effective professional development programs provide frequent and ongoing opportunities for teachers to write and to examine theory, research, and practice together systematically.
• There is no single right approach to teaching writing; however, some practices prove to be more effective than others. A reflective and informed community of practice is in the best position to design and develop comprehensive writing programs.
• Teachers who are well informed and effective in their practice can be successful teachers of other teachers as well as partners in educational research, development, and implementation. Collectively, teacher-leaders are our greatest resource for educational reform. Over time, the NWP model has been recognized and celebrated for its effectiveness. 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 far 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. Today, NWP has a core grant from the U.S. Department of Education that is supplemented by local, state, and private funds. One goal of the NWP is to place a writing project site within reach of every teacher in the nation. If funded, our site here at Cal State Northridge will contribute to meeting that goal. The Cal State Northridge Writing Project:
The Cal State Northridge Writing Project begain as a satellite site of the UCLA Writing Project and was funded as an independent site in 2009, joining the network of California Writing Project sites situated at 17 California State Universities and University of California campuses statewide. Our Directors and Board members have strong ties to the Writing Project on both a national and local level. Five of us are long time Teacher Consultants from other Writing Projects. Several of us were Summer Fellows in the first Summer Institutes of our Writing Projects. We understand the power of the original Writing Project model and are strongly committed to adopting its goals as our own:
•To improve student writing by improving the teaching of writing;
• To improve university and school professional development programs for classroom teachers; and
• To increase the professional power of classroom teachers. Our focus is on the core mission of improving the teaching of writing and improving the use of writing across the disciplines by offering high-quality professional development programs for educators in their service areas, at all grade levels, K–16 and across the curriculum.
