|
ABOUT THE SMWP
The South Mississippi Writing
Project, located at The University of Southern Mississippi, is one of 158
National Writing Project sites in 43 states. The seven NWP sites in Mississippi
work together as the Mississippi Writing/Thinking Institute to offer statewide
programs and conferences for teachers. Through the National Writing Project and
the Mississippi Writing/Thinking Institute, the South Mississippi Writing
Project connects teachers to a state and national network of teachers and
educational leaders. These connections have a leavening effect on instructional
quality in classrooms throughout South Mississippi.
The National Writing Project
began in 1973 as the Bay Area Writing Project. Founding Director Jim Gray had
three goals:
- Improve the teaching of writing and thus the quality of student writing
- Improve the quality of staff development
- Empower teachers
Thus, the Writing Project is really about much more than the word "writing"
usually suggests; it shares much in philosophy with Writing Across the
Curriculum (WAC) programs, now well-established in many universities and
increasingly implemented in elementary and secondary schools. Both promote using
writing to learn and developing skill in writing to communicate. Writing as a
means of communicating ideas has traditionally been recognized as an
indispensable skill of educated persons. More recently, WAC leaders have argued
that writing is also an indispensable tool for thinking; writing helps us both
to develop knowledge and to develop our strategies for acquiring that knowledge.
Writing is thinking.
|
