| A special message for administrators: |
How do you help students improve their writing?
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Start with your teachers.
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| Hire DWP teachers (South Dakota's writing experts). |
| The Dakota Writing Project (DWP) is made up of South Dakota teachers who share your concerns about writing. DWP is a non-profit, collaborative, university/school professional-development program, affiliated with the National Writing Project, that focuses on improving the teaching and learning of writing in South Dakota's classrooms. |
| What others say. . . . |
| "DWP not only taught me great ways to help my students become better writers by letting me learn from and converse with other writing teachers about teaching strategies, it also taught me to love writing." --Dori Nelson, 6th grade teachers, Memorial Middle School, Sioux Falls, 1999 |
| "If I were an administrator, I'd want to get every teacher in my school out to the Writing Project; I wouldn't consider hiring any unless they had been trained by it." --James Squire, Former Executive Director of NCTE, 1986 |
| "Literacy is the foundation of school and workplace success, of citizenship in a democracy, and of learning in all disciplines. The National Writing Project has been instrumental in helping teachers develop better teaching skills so they can help our children improve their ability to read, write, and think." --Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), March 3 1999. |
| What topics are possible? |
| All sorts of topics are possible. Here are some examples of topics that DWP can cover for you (but feel free to suggest an area that interests you): |
- Assessing writing. Create rubrics and explore methods for assessing and grading writing effectively and consistently.
- A Cross-disciplinary approach to writing. Bring teaches from language arts, math, science, history, etc., together for a powerful, integrated approach of incorporating writing into your "non-writing" disciplines.
- Motivating reluctant writers. Do your students hate to write? Do your learning disabled students find writing difficult? Learn how to get students excited about writing!
- Publishing and presenting writing. Create handmade books or web pages, plan public readings, and more.
- Technology as a writing tool. Integrate writing with computers and other forms of technology while focusing on writing.
- Strategies for successful test-taking. Look at sample prompts and how writing tests are scored. Develop practical test-taking strategies for your students. Help students prepare for timed writing exams with "pre-writing" exercises.
- Writing and the community. Learn how interviewing community members and exploring local records and cemeteries can lead students to fascinating and meaningful writing.
- Writing inspired by literature. Inspire students to write with works of literature that "speak" to the students.
- Writing as a process. Improve writing by breaking it down into stages--prewriting, drafting, and revising--we'll show you how.
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| How professional development service works through DWP |
| The Dakota Writing Project works with schools and districts to meet their needs. Sample formats include: |
- Professional-Development days. DWP can design from one to several professional development (inservice) days at your site for teachers, aides, parents, and/or members of your community.
- After-school workshops. Workshops are designed in response to teacher requests and provide a forum for fine-tuning classroom practice.
- Week-long programs. These mini-institutes are traditionally offered in the summer.
- Other formats can be used. We'll collaborate with your school to meet your needs.
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| DWP TEACHER CONSULTANTS are South Dakota teachers (K-12) who have demonstrated excellence in the teaching of writing and successfully completed at least one DWP invitational summer institute. For professional development sessions, the DWP inservice coordinator carefully matches the talents and expertise of teacher consultants to the schools' writing needs. |
| Interested? Contact us! |
| To schedule professional development or find out more information, email the Dakota Writing Project at dwp@usd.edu. |
| You can also write to the Dakota Writing Project, Dakota Hall #212, University of South Dakota, 414 E. Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57069-2390. |
