Making or breaking writers
I am speechless. Those who know me are probably stunned that anything could silence this mouth. But the US DOE has done it to me and to millions of students, teachers, and minds with one stroke. They have eliminated funding for the National Writers Project (NWP) as part of the proposed Education budget. Carolyn Foote and Bud Hunt give the details, including Bud’s efforts to ascertain the rationale behind such a crazy decision. The story continues on their blogs, and I hope you will follow it as you scream via whatever medium works for you.
I am stunned at the notion that the NWP might not have demonstrable impact on student achievement or might have to compete to prove its impact. The NWP’s impact is not only STUDENT achievement. It is discovery of adult voices for life. The NWP is the mental musical accompaniment that helps writers of all ages and stages find their voices, voices they will use to sing, speak, convince, debate, and contribute forever. Teachers who participate in the NWP go from classroom voices to real world voices. The NWP is not a school-specific approach to writing. The NWP makes writers.
The summer I spent in a NWP affiliate program drew me closer to articulating creative process and metacognition than anything I had ever experienced. I lived, survived, and thrived as I watched a kindergarten teacher next to me go from fear of writing to celebrating her voice among her peers and even in a wider world. The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers. If there were ever a viral learning experience, the NWP is it.
Policy makers and education critics tout the strength of alternative teacher certification programs in bringing experienced practitioners from any given field into the classroom. The NWP makes those in the classroom into practitioners of writing, lifelong writers who continue to hone their craft as they live among other (younger) writers. The NWP allows teachers to learn among their students in a community of writers and to articulate the experience with more authority than a nuclear scientist who walks into a physics class. The NWP provides both the experience and the vocabulary to help each teacher start a writing garden. The NWP experience is viral. The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers.
You are a blog reader. You are benefiting from the NWP. Every student of every NWP teacher-participant benefits. And they go on to jobs where they can explain, argue, email, tweet — and perhaps stop to personally question word choice or paragraph substance as they live, survive, and thrive as writers in a world often bereft of deliberate word choice or thought about how we speak and write. Isn’t that the community of literate adults we want? The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers.
Now it is your turn to write to someone about the NWP. If you never knew much about the NWP or are not sure if it has had an impact on you, ask. Ask your former English teacher, kindergarten teacher, or any adult whose writing you admire: did you ever have anything to do with anyone who had participated in the NWP? Did your teachers? If we could trace the connections between writers we respect and contact with NWP, how many degrees of separation would there be? Maybe we should be asking that out loud. If I could reach out to the thousands of students I taught over the years, I would remind them: I was a fellow of a NWP affiliate. And they would conclude: The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers. Pass it on.
Thank you so much for this post — it really helps get the word out about what is happening to our little portion of the federal education budget. But I particularly appreciate what you have said here about the impact of the NWP. As a member myself, I complete resonate with “The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers.”
I would love to reblog this at http://www.nwpworks.ning.com where friends of the NWP are collecting people’s statements.
Comment by ElyseEA — March 12, 2010 @ 7:45 pm
What an eloquent defense of NWP.
This is not the first time recently it has been on the budget chopping block, actually, and Congress has “rescued” it. So important to write and call.
Comment by Carolyn Foote — March 14, 2010 @ 8:44 am
Thanks for writing on behalf of NPW, which certainly changed my world as a teacher.
Kevin
Comment by Kevin Hodgson — March 14, 2010 @ 3:50 pm
As a former fellow of the NWP at Illinois State University, I, too, am shocked and dismayed at the news that they are dropping funding for the program. Many of my experiences during the summer of my fellowship mirror yours. As an undergrad, I loved writing and excelled at it but lost the fire to create with words once I was done with my degree. The NWP ignited that fire again and helped me figure out how to pass that flame on to my students, something I really wasn’t doing at the time. When I was a fellow, technology wasn’t as widespread and mainstream as it is today, and I’m saddened that fewer young social networkers will, as you say, “stop to personally question word choice or paragraph substance.” In a hurry to communicate as fast as they can, many more will disregard writing conventions without the influence of an instructor who has participated in the NWP. Like you said, it’s viral, and even teachers who haven’t participated in the program are touched by it through shared ideas and resources. Thanks for writing about this!
Comment by Julie — April 7, 2010 @ 9:21 am