The Voice
Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006
Awards and Accolades
By NWP Staff
Commission Report Finds Professional Development Is Key
By NWP Staff
According to the National Commission on Writing's recent report Writing and School Reform, the best hope for improving both writing and schools lies in high-quality professional development....
Director's Update
By Richard Sterling
NWP Executive Director Richard Sterling comments on the NWP community's responses to the devastating disasters of recent years, its expanding work with new technologies, and the results of the Local Site Research Initiative, and shares his own observations of NWP sites....
Don't Miss This Year's Annual Meeting in Nashville
By NWP Staff
As always, the annual meeting offers a rich variety of workshops and events; one difference this year is that advance registration is required for all workshops....
E-Rate Celebrates Ten Years
By NWP Staff
The E-Rate legislation passed in 1996, which provides funding to bring affordable access to the Internet to schools and libraries, helps schools prepare students for the twenty-first century....
Earlier Dates for 2007 NWP Spring Meeting
By NWP Staff
In 2007, the writing project's annual spring meeting in Washington, DC, will take place March 29–30 rather than in early April as has been customary....
Gulf Coast Sites Steadily Rebuilding
By Ann Dobie
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, with their facilities damaged and their members scattered across the country, members of three writing project sites revive their communities and their programs—and use writing in the healing process....
Local Site Research Initiative: Results and Reflections
By Linda Friedrich, Paul LeMahieu, Margaret Perrow, Sherry Swain
Five NWP sites conducted locally defined studies involving program and comparison groups to investigate how key aspects of their programs contributed to changes in teaching practices and student achievement in writing; the results consistently favored the NWP....
NWP Cyberspace Project Connects Youth Voices
By Paul Oh
An online project seeded by a Technology Matters minigrant allows students at three high schools to exchange written and audio compositions along with images; this activity increases their engagement and improves their writing....
Post-Tsunami Storytelling in Indonesia
By Katherine Schultz
Schultz was invited to Indonesia to mentor new teachers hired to replace those who perished in the tsunami-devastated province of Aceh....
Social Action Collaboration Generates New Book
By NWP Staff
In a four-year collaborative project with the Centre for Social Action (CSA) in England, NWP teachers explored new opportunities for student-driven learning in their schools using Social Action strategies, which had successfully engaged marginalized young people in complex and demanding work; now the teachers, along with CSA trainers, document their experiences in NWP's newest book, Writing for Change: Boosting Literacy and Learning Through Social Action....
Special-Focus Network Conferences Empower Teachers, Boost Local Sites
By NWP Staff
Three of NWP's special-focus networks will hold national conferences in the coming year, giving teacher-leaders the opportunity to network with and learn from other educators in their shared areas of focus....
Spotlight on New-Site Directors
By NWP Staff
The Voice introduces the directors of three new sites that have recently joined the NWP network: Katherine Frank, director of the Southern Colorado Writing Project; Vicki Holmsten, director of the Bisti Writing Project (New Mexico); and Jeff Wilhelm, director of the Boise State University Writing Project (Idaho)....
Students Tell Their Stories Digitally
By Joel Elliott
Digital storytelling is still very much storytelling....
Teacher Uses Email to Teach Basics of Written Word
By Kristina Torres
A middle school teacher describes how she stepped away from traditional "skill and drill" writing exercises and started teaching students to write clear, concise emails....
Veteran Teacher Takes His Victory Lap
By Joe Bellacero
Teacher-consultant Joe Bellacero (now associate director of the New York City Writing Project), retiring as a high school English instructor in the Bronx, reflects on his most wrenching experiences, such as being threatened with a knife; his most inspiring experiences, such as coaching failing students to success; and the love he has given and received over the years....
Writing Project Examines Technology in the Classroom
NWP's Technology Initiative and the federal government's E-Rate program allow teachers to reimagine their teaching in a digital environment and to help young people develop as writers on the read-write Web....
Writing Project Honoree Speaks in D.C.
By Connie McDonald
Teacher-consultant Connie McDonald, who over the years has had an extraordinary number of her students named as winners or finalists in the River of Words poetry project, was honored at a formal event at the Library of Congress; this is her acceptance speech....
Writing Project's Science-Literacy Curriculum Honored
By Gavin Tachibana
Members of the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) have been awarded the NASA Honor Group Achievement Award for their part in composing Reading, Writing, & Rings, a series of lessons for K–4 students based on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn that weaves together language arts lessons and NASA science content....
