National Writing Project
I’ve been accepted into the NWP Summer Institute at Rutgers! I’m very excited. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but when I lived in Virginia there wasn’t a local NWP site for me to attend, and up until now I couldn’t afford it. I still can’t really afford it, but maybe I can’t afford not to do it, either.
We had a meeting a few weeks ago before they made their final decisions about who was accepted into the program, and since then they’ve notified me that I’m in. I’ve even enrolled in the course.
One of the main reasons that I want to do this is that I really would like to be connected with other educators in the area who are interested in professional development. I have some great colleagues here at school, but would like to develop more professional ties to others in the profession. Since my defeat in the NCTE election last year when I ran for Secondary Steering Committee, I’ve not been very active in NCTE or any other professional organization. I went to NCTE in New York, but didn’t have any role other than attendee. It was a bit refreshing, but I also felt like I was missing out. I’ve considered getting involved in the New Jersey affiliate of NCTE, but just haven’t done so yet. I’m hoping that the NWP will provide the community I need.
Also, looking back at my list of goals for the year, I think I may have identified a few people in my department that I can approach to see if they’re interested in starting a writing group. We’ll see what I can get going there. If I can get it going, maybe I can even turn it into a professional development course. At my school we have to complete 21 hours of professional development courses. We can take a wide variety of courses (many of them about technology) and we can also submit proposals to present courses (for which we get paid). I might be able to do a workshop on writing that could meet each month and we would not only have a useful writing group, but could knock out some PDC hours in the process.
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