2008 Woodie Awards
Campus hosts annual teacher writing project
Institute helps teaches skills in developing student writing
Christin Pepple
Issue date: 6/6/07 Section: News
The Middle Tennessee Writing Project or MTWP, a writing institute for selected teachers of kindergarten through college students, will be hosted by MTSU this month.
This is the third annual seminar for teachers who are working to advance their focus for writing instruction in their classrooms.
MTSU is the second college in the state of Tennessee that offers this particular kind of seminar for teachers in the state and is one of 185 sites of The National Writing Project, which is a federally funded program that was launched in 1974.
18 teachers are participating in the Summer Institute this summer, classes are four days a week from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Kirskey Old Main building in room 104. After they complete the session they will join 40 other MTWP participants from previous years who are now titled Teacher-Consultants.
Bobbie Solley, graduate professor of elementary education at MTSU and director of the MTWP, said that the ways used to teach educators how to better advise their students in the ways of learning how to write correctly could be taught amongst themselves.
"We use a particular method that can be best described as 'teachers teaching teachers,'" Solly said. "Each participant has to organize a 90-minute presentation on how to effectively teach students how to write that has worked for the individual teacher in the past. These teachers will be sharing their expertise and learning from one another."
Solley and several other co-directors teach more directed sessions to the participants and show them several new ways to teach students how to write effectively.
The participants were selected through a personal application and interview process held from February through March. The teachers who were selected will receive three hours of graduate credit, a $500 stipend at the end of the Summer Institute and the title of Teacher-Consultant.
The funding for this program came from grants totaling $90,000. The National Writing Project supplied $45,000 and MTSU matched the grant for the grand total. It will also fund three Youth Writer's Camps. These camps span two weeks and are held Mondays through Thursdays for students from three counties, Rutherford, Cannon and Wilson counties.
This is the third annual seminar for teachers who are working to advance their focus for writing instruction in their classrooms.
MTSU is the second college in the state of Tennessee that offers this particular kind of seminar for teachers in the state and is one of 185 sites of The National Writing Project, which is a federally funded program that was launched in 1974.
18 teachers are participating in the Summer Institute this summer, classes are four days a week from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Kirskey Old Main building in room 104. After they complete the session they will join 40 other MTWP participants from previous years who are now titled Teacher-Consultants.
Bobbie Solley, graduate professor of elementary education at MTSU and director of the MTWP, said that the ways used to teach educators how to better advise their students in the ways of learning how to write correctly could be taught amongst themselves.
"We use a particular method that can be best described as 'teachers teaching teachers,'" Solly said. "Each participant has to organize a 90-minute presentation on how to effectively teach students how to write that has worked for the individual teacher in the past. These teachers will be sharing their expertise and learning from one another."
Solley and several other co-directors teach more directed sessions to the participants and show them several new ways to teach students how to write effectively.
The participants were selected through a personal application and interview process held from February through March. The teachers who were selected will receive three hours of graduate credit, a $500 stipend at the end of the Summer Institute and the title of Teacher-Consultant.
The funding for this program came from grants totaling $90,000. The National Writing Project supplied $45,000 and MTSU matched the grant for the grand total. It will also fund three Youth Writer's Camps. These camps span two weeks and are held Mondays through Thursdays for students from three counties, Rutherford, Cannon and Wilson counties.
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