New Zealand teachers respond to the ‘National Writing Project’ experience

Abstract

This article draws on early data from a two-year project (2009–11) being undertaken in the New Zealand context by the authors entitled: ‘Teachers as Writers: Transforming Professional Identity and Classroom Practice’. Based on the National Writing Project in the USA (and in New Zealand in the 1980s) its hypothesis is that when teachers embrace the professional identity of writer, their practices as teachers of writing undergo a transformation that enhances the experience of and performance in the writing of their students.

Keywords:

• National Writing Project
• New Zealand
• Teachers as Writers
• writing
• writing workshop

Notes

1. A National Writing Project took place at a similar time in England, running from 1985–88, with a year’s dissemination from 1988–89.

2. The professional journal of secondary English teachers in New Zealand and published by the New Zealand Association for the Teaching of English.

3. asTTLe (Assessment tasks for teaching and learning) has been developed by the University of Auckland as a nationally referenced assessment tool for reading and writing. See http://www.tki.org.nz/r/asTTle/.

4. This situation in New Zealand is reflected in other Anglophonic settings. For example, in arguing a case for a National Writing Project in England, Professor Richard Andrews (2008, 9) writes that: ‘It is generally agreed, on both sides of the Atlantic, that there is a problem with the teaching of writing and with writing performance by school-age pupils. Writing performance lags behind reading performance in the UK and in the USA.’

5. In respect of the latter, the professional literature typically (self-)reports on impact of engagement with literary genres such as lyric poetry (see, for example, Linaberger 2004–05; Kell 2005). Whitney (2009) reports on American summer institute tensions over the desirability of focusing on ‘personal’ or ‘professional’ writing in writing workshops. Our proposed project deconstructs this distinction.

6. In groups, participants respond to each other’s statements of position with a sentence beginning ‘Yes, but...’. Sharers of position statements simply listen to these ‘Yes, buts’ and take notes.

7. Group members are given a sentence starter, either adverb, conjunction or common sentence starter, and can only participate in a discussion of a given topic if they use their starter to launch their contribution.