Welcome to
the Website of the Greater New Orleans
Writing Project!
The Greater New Orleans Writing Project (GNOWP) has been housed in the English Department of the University of New Orleans since 1978. GNOWP is one of five Louisiana sites of the National Writing Project, a teacher-centered program that seeks to improve student writing and the teaching of writing. The National Writing Project has been recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as "the best large-scale effort to improve composition instruction now in operation in this country." The Writing Project has its greatest impact on the largest number of teachers through its in-service programs in the schools. Teacher consultants work with university and school personnel and teachers to develop and give in-service workshops. As we believe the best teacher of teachers is a teacher, all in-service activities are coordinated and given by writing project teachers.
Since real change in classroom practice takes time, effective in-service must be ongoing and systematic. Therefore, it is the Writing Project's policy to offer in-service in a series. In-services are usually 90 minutes long and are delivered in a series of 4 - 5 coordinated workshops. The Greater New Orleans Writing Project can create a series of writing workshops for any school system's particular needs, including workshops geared towards meeting standards and benchmarks in English Language Arts.
The Greater New Orleans Writing Project offers the teachers and students of public, private, and parochial schools of five Southeast Louisiana parishes these opportunities:
- A Summer Invitational Writing Institute for teachers, k-university, in all content areas.
- In-service workshops in teaching writing.
Since 1990 GNOWP teacher consultants have planned and coordinated workshops that have reached over 1500 teachers.
- A network of colleagues who meet regularly to renew and update skills and knowledge.
GNOWP teachers meet regularly over the year to renew themselves as writers and teachers.
- Participation in statewide reform movements in education and awards.
GNOWP teachers were invited to State Curriculum Committees to improve guidelines for writing in English and the Language Arts. GNOWP teachers have been recognized on the state and local levels for teaching excellence, including parish and state teachers of the year.
- Saturday Seminars and open workshops.
During the school year, GNOWP teacher consultants plan and coordinate half-day writing workshops for teachers in the greater metro area.
The National Writing Project
The National Writing Project is a nationwide program that works to:
- improve student writing abilities by improving the teaching and learning of writing in the nation's schools,
- provide professional development programs for classroom teachers, and
- expand the professional roles of teachers.
The National Writing Project operates on a teachers-teaching-teachers model. Successful writing teachers attend Invitational Summer Writing Institutes at their local universities. During the school year these teachers provide workshops for other teachers in the schools.
Basic Assumptions of the Writing project
All of the Writing Projects activities are based on the following assumptions:
1. The university and schools work together as partners, believing that the "top-down" tradition is no longer acceptable as a staff development model.
2. Successful practicing teachers are the best teachers of other teachers, having credibility no outside consultant can match.
3. Writing is as fundamental to learning in science, mathematics, and history as it is to learning in English and the language arts.
4. Writing needs constant attention and repetition from the early grades on through the university.
5. Teachers of writing must also write; the process of writing can be understood best by engaging in that process first hand.
6. Real change in classroom practice happens over time.
7. Effective staff development programs are on-going and systematic, bringing teachers together regularly throughout their careers to test and evaluate the best practices of other teachers and the continuing developments in the field.
8. What is known about the teaching of writing comes not only from research but from the practice of those who teach writing.
9. The National Writing Project, by promoting no single "right" approach to the teaching of writing, is open to whatever is known about writing from whatever source.
The Invitational Summer Writing Institute
The Summer Writing Institute is offered each summer at the University of New Orleans. Teachers must apply and interview for the Institute. Twenty teachers are selected on the basis of their success as teachers who use writing, regardless of discipline, in the classroom, and for their promise as equally successful teachers of other teachers. Institute participants come from all grade levels, across the curriculum, and from public, private, and parochial schools.
The Summer Institute runs for five weeks, all day, four days a week. It requires extensive reading, writing, and preparation. Participants receive six hours of graduate credit. A stipend is offered and teacher tuition exemption is available.
The Institute is both academic and experimental. It creates a rare opportunity: teachers come together as a community of writers, freed from the demands of teaching, to write and share. Teachers work in "reading and response" groups where they write, respond to others' writings, revise, and publish their own work. This experience is central to the development of a teacher. Extensive readings pertaining to writing and learning are assigned and discussed. Guest speakers and teacher consultants often lead sessions.
Each teacher develops a teaching in-service demonstration regarding the successful teaching of writing and presents it to his/her peers in the Summer Institute. Teachers from the Institute become Teacher Consultants in the Writing Project.
Click Here connect to a downloadable early application or Click Here to register online for our 2007 Invitational Summer Institute to be held from June 3 – July 3 2007.
Summer Institute Transforms Teaching!
Feedback from Fellows
GNOWP inspired me to long to go home and write every day. It unleashed an overwhelming current of ideas I yearned to capture on paper. That had never happened to me before. But most importantly, I was invigorated with hope after meeting so many dynamic teachers.
This summer I was reminded of how much writing means to me, and for that I'll be forever grateful.
The greatest honor that I can bestow upon a course is that it changed me. This course did exactly that. I shall never approach writing and teaching the way that I used to.
The Greater New Orleans Writing Project was a wonderful experience. I feel enthusiastic and motivated with so many new ideas for teaching. I can't wait to start the next school year!
For further information about the Greater New Orleans Writing Project, contact
Ken Rayes, Director
Greater New Orleans Writing Project
Department of English
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA 70148
Phone: (504) 280-7323
E-Mail: krayes@uno.edu