How Local Sites Can Participate in the National Day on Writing

Date: July 9, 2009

Summary: As part of the celebration of the National Day on Writing, local writing project sites can create their own galleries featuring the writing of teachers, students, and community members, to be included as part of the National Gallery of Writing.

Local writing project sites can now celebrate the National Day on Writing by offering the work of teachers, students, and community members in their own gallery of writing.

These local galleries will be part of the National Gallery of Writing , a digital archive of compositions available through a free, searchable website. The Gallery will be "unveiled" to the public on the National Day on Writing, October, 20, 2009.

Start a Local Gallery

Any site can start a local gallery . The only requirement is that a local site choose a curator, who submits a request to join on the group's behalf and agrees to review all work before it is submitted to be published.

The National Writing Project will host a gallery with selections drawn from this year's E-Anthology. According to curator Shirley Brown, "We're delighted to have the chance to let many readers see some of the wonderful pieces that summer fellows were able to create during NWP summer institutes."

Participants in the National Gallery of Writing can submit any form of writing to their local gallery—professional writing, fiction, poetry, movies, photos, and also multimedia pieces. Writing submitted now can be reviewed and published as early as mid-August. The National Gallery of Writing will remain open until June 2010.

NWP is pleased to be a partner in the National Gallery of Writing, which was created by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) as one way to celebrate the National Day on Writing. The day provides an occasion to celebrate the foundational place of writing in Americans' personal, professional, and civic lives, and to point to the importance of writing instruction and practice at every grade level, for every student and in every subject area from preschool through university.

Some writing project teachers are already planning National Day on Writing activities.

Organizers hope that in an age when technologies are expanding the possibilities of composing in multiple media and allowing writers to reach wider audiences than ever before, more Americans will be encouraged to write and enjoy and learn from the writing of others.

Writing Projects Plan Activities

Some writing project teachers are already planning National Day on Writing activities and thinking up ways to encourage participation in this fast-growing event. For instance, the Eastern Michigan Writing Project details how it hopes to get "EMWPers" involved .

The Lowcountry Writing Project in South Carolina has come up with steps to get schools active in the National Day on Writing around a "Celebrate Charleston through Writing" theme. They are even considering how potential writing assignments for the National Day on Writing will comply with state standards.

In addition, NCTE offers a number of suggestions for celebrating the National Day on Writing. Among them are:

• Host a Family Writing Night
• Showcase students work using poster sessions, computer lab presentations, etc.
• Hold a Back-to-School Writing Celebration Night
• Invite well-known local/regional writers to share their writing processes and samples of their work at school or local group events.

Word of this national event is quickly spreading, even to the halls of Congress. On June 9, 2009, a resolution in support of the National Day on Writing was submitted in the House of Representatives, and was later referred to the Committee on Education and Labor.

Download the National Day on Writing flier and share it with your colleagues, students, community members, and friends. For more information, visit the official National Day on Writing page .

Please let NWP know when your site has started writing by emailing your local gallery's URL to nwp@nwp.org.

Related Resource Topics

• Being a Writer