About E-Anthology

Overview

The NWP E-Anthology was a national online forum dedicated to supporting invitational summer institutes and ran 2003–2011. The E-Anthology provided participants a safe online space to publish their writing and reflections during the institute, and provided participants the experience of sharing writing through an online forum.

History

The E-Anthology was an extension of the typical summer institute Open Mic, Read Around, or Author's Chair—a place for sharing writing, responding to writing, and discussing the teaching of writing. Instead of sharing with members of only one site, though, E-Anthology participants had the opportunity to share their writing with a national audience of teachers.

The E-Anthology also included areas for discussion of current issues and interests. Past participants posted descriptions of their sites and institutes, comments about current issues like standards and assessments, reactions to readings and research in their summer institute, and much more.

The E-Anthology was created in 1997 by a group of writing project teachers exploring the use of new technologies to support writing project work. After a variety of experiments with newly developing online tools and digital environments, the E-Anthology settled into its first home at the Dakota Writing Project, where the University of South Dakota made its WebCT tool (an online course management forum) and Web server space available. As the number of sites participating increased, an "E-Team" was formed to respond to writing and encourage others to respond. This team eventually supported the move of the E-Anthology out of WebCT to more supportive online forums.

In 2003, the E-Anthology settled into its home on the NWP server. With a dedicated development team working to design the right tools for the job, the E-Anthology began to take on a revised form which attracted more than 100 summer institutes and 2,500 individual participants each year.