The Boston Writing Project is one of the oldest writing projects in the National Writing Project Network. Founded in 1979 by Joseph Check at the Institute for Learning and Teaching at UMass-Boston, it began as a partnership serving the Boston Public Schools. The BPS paid for the salary of the teacher/co-director and established a "Writing Consortium" to address the issue of teaching writing in Boston's schools. At that time the BWP was the only site of the NWP in Massachusetts and one of only two in New England. Aside from the BPS contribution, basic funding for the project was limited to an annual matching grant from the National Writing Project, plus release time from UMass Boston for a part-time Project Director. In contrast, other states provided legislative funding for multiple-site Writing Project networks.

Since its founding, the BWP has expanded its service area to include schools in the greater metropolitan area. In 1992, the NWP established a second site at UMass- Amherst. The goal of the BWP is to work with schools and teachers to improve the teaching and learning of writing in Massachusetts classrooms, K College. To further this goal, the BWP has conducted annual summer institutes, in-service programs, and a graduate certificate program in the teaching of writing for a wide variety of urban and suburban schools and teachers

Immediately successful, the BWP grew exponentially, at one time holding five summer institutes, two specifically for Boston teachers, the others for the rest of the state. Funding came from the Bank of New England, the BPS, the University Board of Regents, private corporations, and in-service fees paid by other school systems. BWP was a founding member site of the Urban Sites Network of the NWP and took the lead in its ELL Network. Legislative direct funding soon followed, authorizing a state network of writing projects, adding $100,000 a year to the BWP budget. Five staff people worked full time in three offices and maintained a teacher resource library at the University. The BWP grew and nurtured a wide base of Teacher Consultants actively participating in local and national writing project activities.

Gradually the landscape began to change. A series of state and local budget crises dramatically reduced the local funding and severely impacted the BWP. The BPS could no longer pay the co-director's salary, the state ceased funding a state network of writing projects, and other sources of funding began to dry up. The BWP had to reduce its staff, relying more and more on part-time employees, losing office space, and reducing its resource library. In 2004, it began the process of restructuring to meet these new realities. A new leadership team has been working diligently to revive the BWP's role in being the premier staff development organization in the field of teaching writing.

Concomitantly, the National Writing Project moved to establish two new Writing Project sites at Worcester State College, the Central Massachusetts Writing Project, and at UMass-Dartmouth, the Buzzards Bay Writing Project. Supported by NWP funding, there now exists the Massachusetts Writing Project that includes the two recently established sites at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Worcester State College.

The state network of Writing Project sites is seeking to restore state funding and to increase its work in helping teachers become better teachers of writing.

Major Activities 2006-2007

The 27th Invitational Summer Institute: Each summer the Boston Writing Project conducts an intensive four-week program for Massachusetts' teachers from all grade levels and subject areas. Through lecture-demonstrations and presentations by BWP staff, teacher consultants and visiting scholars, the Invitational Institute explores current research, theory and practice in the teaching of writing. Teachers perform daily writing assignments and meet twice a week in small groups to discuss and improve their writing. This year sixteen teachers from ten different school systems participated. Topics covered by teacher demonstrations included "Creating and Using Blogs in the Writing Workshop", "Using Digital Storytelling in the Language Arts classroom", "Socratic Seminars and "Literature Circles." In addition, BWP fellows participated in workshops given by staff and consultants that dealt with "NCS Mentor Software and the MCAS scoring Criteria", "Responding to Student Writing", and "Classroom-Based Teacher Research." They also went to several off site locations for workshops on "Using Hemingway's Manuscripts to Teach Writing" (at the JFK presidential Library) and "The Impact of Race and Culture on One's Writing" (at the African American Meeting House on Beacon Hill).

Student Writers 2007 Summer Institute: Thirty new middle and high school writers joined sixteen returning high school mentors to participate in this program funded jointly by the Boston Public Schools and the Calderwood Foundation. The students wrote in a variety of genres, shared and critiqued their writing, participated in workshops with professional writers, engaged in public readings and published anthologies of their work. The BWP has been working closely with BPS on this Project for over ten years, and BWP leadership team member Nancy O'Malley directs this effort.

Teacher Research has become an increasingly important component of the BWP. Last year a closed cohort model was established with teachers from Snowden High School in Boston. Teachers met biweekly, reading, writing and discussing issues that arose from observations in their own classrooms. These culminated in papers published by the BWP. This model of staff development was greeted so favorably that this year the cohort continued to meet and the High School Renewal department of the BPS has invited the project to expand it to three more schools. This work has also been strongly supported with funds from the Calderwood Foundation.

Teacher as Writer. The BWP held multiple sessions for ten teachers working on writing about the profession. Held at UMass/Boston, these sessions provided structured and supportive feedback from experienced staff members. In addition they provided a sense of community that is ongoing as the work begun then continues to be part of BWP programming.

Continuity events. Teacher Fellows from Summer 06 were called back three times during the school year to participate in follow up events. Partly to continue their professional development but also to continue to foster the bonds formed during the summer, these meetings occurred during October, December and May. They provided an opportunity for Fellows to share their classroom progress, listen to teacher research presentations and participated in a variety of workshops.

State Networking. BWP co-director Bruce Rettman has been an energizing and vocal representative to the Mass Writing Network. He was instrumental in designing and planning a major MWN conference on Writing held in May. Featuring Sonia Nieto as the keynote speaker, this conference successfully brought together 140 teachers from across the state to Worcester where wiring project teachers provided concurrent workshop sessions. BWP teachers presided over three different workshops during this one-day event. The MNW is becoming an increasingly powerful and progressive force in teaching writing statewide and the BWP has persuasive and influential voices in this network.

Expanding website. The BWP teacher consultant Matt Matera has taken on the challenge of redesigning the BWP website. Formerly a one-way avenue for information about the project, the site will soon be interactive, featuring teacher web logs, discussion forums, student writing and links to various local and national sources of information about teaching writing. Still in its construction stage it has nevertheless shown great possibilities for becoming a premier site in the National network.

Teaching Writing K-12(Edu 621) continues to be a highly rated 3-credit course taught by BWP staff. Offered through the Graduate College of Education it was designed by the BWP as an alternative for those teachers who could not get into the Summer Invitational Institute. It has since become a required course in some programs and is often the first level of participation for many who go on to become further involved in BWP activities. It is one of the core courses in the BWP designed Certificate in Teaching Writing (see below).

Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of Literacy and Writing
The BWP has developed a comprehensive fifteen-credit graduate certificate program in the teaching of writing. The combination of three core courses and two electives give teachers a solid knowledge base, while allowing them the flexibility to work intensively in areas of interest including Teacher Research, Teaching and Writing with Second Language Learners and Creating a Balanced Literacy Program. This year the BWP staff is exploring the possibilities of expanding this program to become an on-line offering of the project.

Website: http://www.bostonwritingproject.org/