Teacher Summer Institute
July 7 - August 4th, 2008. (The last day of attendance is August 1.)
The Oregon Writing Project at Willamette University invites you to participate in the four week Summer Institute to be held each July in Salem. The Institute is modeled after the Bay Area Writing Project and offers professional growth opportunities for teachers kindergarten through college in all content areas who wish to develop their writing skills and improve effectiveness in teaching writing. The goals include:
- Improving student writing
- Increasing the use of writing to learn
- Improving university and school collaboration
- Increasing the professional power of teachers as staff developers and classroom researchers
The Summer Institute provides a collegial writing forum where teachers polish writing skills, explore new technology, and share expertise across grade levels and subject areas. Twenty experienced teachers will come together during this four-week session to share successful writing strategies used in their own classrooms, work on developing their own writing, learn techniques for using technology to support writing, hear from guest writers and consultants, and explore current research on writing and the teaching of writing.
During the following year, participants will return to campus to review and extend the summer work and organize staff development activities for colleagues at their school sites. Nine Willamette University graduate quarter credits can be earned by Fellows who complete the Summer Institute and the required follow-up research or staff development projects. Other opportunities for advanced study will be available.
Fees and tuition for the Summer Institute are $2,250. Tuition stipends of $1,900 will be offered to the first twenty successful applicants. The Summer Institute is funded by Willamette University and the National Writing Project, with support from local schools and participant fees.
You are encouraged to apply early in the new year and share information about the Institute with your colleagues; you may even wish to apply as a team with one or two others from your school. Applications will be accepted beginning in January and acceptance interviews scheduled with applicants until twenty teachers are accepted for the Summer Institute—first come, first served. An important pre-Institute orientation will be held for selected teachers in May from 4-8 pm.
If you have further questions, please contact Jodie Crowe at: jodiecrowe@comcast.net or at: 503-385-6245.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS--some comments from OWP alumni--excerpted from anonymous final evaluations:
"OWP offers an opportunity to work collaboratively and share the best writing strategies with colleagues."
"A wonderful way to develop the habits of a writer."
"So many more ideas! I actually feel like going back to teach tomorrow. Craziness in July! I am excited and confident about teaching writing."
"I’m inspired to use writing in my science teaching to help my students verbalize abstract concepts."
"The Summer Institute has fostered in me a greater recognition of how all the grade levels, kindergarten through college, are connected and reflect each other."
"I appreciate the opportunity to explore the research and writings in the field ... With theory comes the power and justification to try always more things in teaching ..."
"I never knew writing would be so spirited and enlightening."
"The freedom to write and think and reflect and write again is a wonderful gift."