Professional Development Opportunities

The San Antonio Writing Project

Professional Development Opportunities

Unchanging Principles and Practices for Change
Sheridan Blau The director of the South Coast Writing Project discusses NWP’s professional development philosophy and how it is a powerful agent for change.

The San Antonio Writing Project comprises a group of experienced and dedicated teachers, across disciplines, who can provide professional development for your school. The National Writing Project is an authorized professional development provider under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (otherwise known as No Child Left Behind). Each in-service activity offered by SAWP is custom-designed to fit the particular needs and circumstance of the school requesting our service.

The kinds of in-service work we can provide, however, can fall into these general categories:

Open Institutes
Open Institutes typically last a week and focus on issues that are of critical concern in the classroom such as addressing the needs of second language learners, developing viewing and representing skills, promoting writing in K-3 classrooms, assuring social equity in a diverse classroom, and discovering ways to promote writing across the curriculum.

Examples
–Summer 2008 Open Institute with Southside ISD
–Fall 2007 Open Institute with Southside ISD

Continuing Professional Development Credits (CEUs) Available:
As an affiliate of the National Writing Project, the San Antonio Writing Project is authorized to provide No Child Left Behind continuing professional development units (CEUs) for individual schools and school districts. Each Open Institute is developed to provide 3.0 CEUs, except for Advanced Institutes, which are two week Institutes and provide 6.0 CEUs. Title I and II funds from No Child Left Behind may be used to underwrite the costs of these CTWP-Open Institutes.

District Partnerships
The San Antonio Writing Project is interested in professional development that lasts, and this kind of change takes time. The San Antonio Writing Project can provide customized faculty development for particular schools or school districts related to teaching writing across disciplines from K-college. Working with faculty and administration, the SAWP can help design a program to fit a particular school’s needs. These multi-session inservice sessions are taught by master teachers who share their knowledge about various aspects of the writing process: prewriting, organizing, elaborating, revising, editing, and publishing. They emphasize the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills as they demonstrate how to motivate young writers and how to build a positive and productive learning environment.

Saturday Workshops
SAWP also occassionally hosts one-day workshops that are open to the San Antonio Community. At these workshops, SAWP Teacher Consultants will present Teaching Demonstrations of particular teaching assignments. In addition, guest speakers of interest may be invited to present.

See information on the Feb.3, 2007 Showcasing Writing Across the Curriculum
and the Feb 2, 2008 The Writing Connection Saturday workshops held at UTSA-Downtown Campus.