The National Writing Project has been my professional home for 33 years. My life as an educator was formed and nurtured within the Writing Project community and it is impossible for me to think of the trajectory of my career or even my personal identity without it.

In 1978 I participated in the first summer institute of the New York City Writing Project. I had been teaching for only three years, and I had had only limited support in my growth as a teacher. Through that summer institute I connected with colleagues from across the city who loved students as I did, and who wanted to excel in their profession.  I learned an enormous amount from the others in the institute and I hope I contributed to their knowledge as well. Following that summer, I kept developing my practice as a teacher of writing and began to provide leadership to my colleagues in my school and through workshops I conducted on behalf of the Writing Project. In 1981 I was one of three educators who collaborated on a successful federal proposal to bring the model of the NYCWP directly into schools. This grant project changed the nature of professional development in schools across New York City -- not only in those schools affiliated with the Writing Project but in other schools as well. Instead of leaving teaching to enter law school (I had already taken the LSAT), this experience kept me in education -- teaching students, teaching teachers.  It is safe to say that participation in the Writing Project has contributed to retaining thousands of teachers nationally who might otherwise have left teaching due to their discouragement in a difficult job and the absence of a professional community to support them.

The NWP is a learning organization unlike any other. With more than 200 sites around the country, it has succeeded in supporting a diverse network of urban, rural, and suburban sites serving every possible student demographic. Its relationship with these sites is a model of reciprocity -- NWP staff provide funding and technical assistance for new initiatives and for the key features of every Writing Project site, and at the same time, they develop new projects and resources out of the rich and complex work of teachers and students throughout their network.  This respect for teaching as a shared intellectual enterprise is a signature both of NWP sites and of the core NWP leadership.

The NWP’s powerful model of professional development has directly affected schools and teachers K-12 and has, as well, influenced the conception and practices of college-level writing-across-the-curriculum programs, including the one I now coordinate at Lehman College, CUNY.  No other organization has the ability to understand and impact literacy practice, policy, and assessment across the entire spectrum of a student’s education.  

I never imagined as a young teacher that now--33 years after I participated in my first NYCWP institute--I would still maintain the same passion, commitment, and dedication to excellent practice and student achievement that I had in those early days. And my story is not unique. Whether I talk with NWP colleagues in Brooklyn or the Bronx, or Mississippi, or Michigan, this is the National Writing Project story. The story must continue.