About the National Project

The National Writing Project is the premier effort to improve writing in America. Through its professional development model, NWP builds the leadership, programs, and research needed for teachers to help their students become successful writers and learners.

Every student deserves a highly skilled teacher of writing. To that end, each of the nearly 200 NWP sites conducts an annual summer institute, attended by the most experienced teachers in the area. Together, these teachers prepare for leadership roles by demonstrating their most effective practices, studying research, and improving their knowledge of writing by writing themselves.

After the institute, writing project teachers conduct project-sponsored programs in their own schools and in neighboring schools and districts. They attend to two purposes: developing teacher knowledge and leadership in their home communities and putting this knowledge and leadership to work to improve student achievement. Collectively, across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, NWP sites conducted 7,288 programs in 2005. Additional programs were conducted at associated international sites in Hong Kong and Malta.

This model of summer and school-year programs, designed and supported by the National Writing Project, is validated by NWP research. Studies of student achievement, both local and national, show positive results. Importantly, NWP sponsors research directed by local sites as well as research targeted at key educational concerns, for example, how to support new teachers or how to support teachers, grades 4–12, in their efforts to improve students' reading and writing for academic purposes.

NWP sites, all located on university campuses, serve over 141,000 educators annually. NWP continues to add new sites each year with the goal of placing the writing project within reach of every teacher in America.

For more information on the impact of the National Writing project click the link below.

http://www.writingproject.org/pressroom/impact.csp