Basic Beliefs

The National Writing Project is the premier effort to improve writing in America. Through its professional development model, based on the assumptions below, NWP builds the leadership, programs, and research needed for teachers to help their students become successful writers and learners. Studies of student achievement, both local and national, show positive results.

1. The university and the schools must work together as partners. The "top-down" tradition of past university-school programs is no longer acceptable as a staff development model.
2. Successful teachers of writing can be identified, brought together during university Summer Institutes, and trained to teach other teachers in follow-up programs in the schools.
3. Teachers are the best teachers of other teachers; successful practicing teachers have a credibility no outside consultant can match.
4. Summer Institutes must involve teachers from all levels of instruction, elementary school through university; student writing needs constant attention and repetition from the early primary grades on through the university years.
5. Summer Institutes must involve teachers from across the disciplines; writing is as fundamental to learning in science, in mathematics, and in history as it is in English and the language arts.
6. Teachers of writing must also write: Teachers must experience what they are asking of their students when they have students write; the process of writing can be understood best by engaging in that process first hand.
7. Real change in classroom practice happens over time; effective staff development programs are on-going and systematic, bringing teachers together regularly throughout their careers to test and evaluate the best practices of other teachers and the continuing developments in the field.
8. What is known about the teaching of writing comes not only from research but from the practice of those who teach writing.
9. The National Writing Project, by promoting no single "right" approach to the teaching of writing, is now and will always be open to whatever is known about writing from whatever source.