Summer Institute 2008
The Spartanburg Writing Project is now accepting applications from teachers interested in participating in the 25th annual Summer Institute of the Spartanburg Writing Project. The Summer Institute will be held June 4-30, 2008, from 8:30am-3:00pm at USC Upstate. This intense professional development experience is unlike any you have encountered and provides invaluable strategies for improving literacy and writing instruction in classrooms across the curriculum. Teachers may attend by application and invitation only.
Applicants should be experienced educators from kindergarten through university level with an interest in exploring their own writing and in improving writing instruction in their own classrooms. Participants are expected to assume leadership roles in local educational and professional development programs following their involvement with the Summer Institute. Because the writing project is committed to the integration of literacy strategies across the curriculum, we encourage teachers of all ages and all content areas to apply.
Co-sponsored by USC Upstate and the school districts of Spartanburg County and Union County, the Summer Institute offers six hours of graduate credit tuition free. Participants also receive a $300 stipend to purchase books to support their teaching of writing. Twenty-five outstanding teachers representing elementary, middle or junior high, high school, and college will be selected as 2008 Fellows.
The Summer Institute is an intensive four-week program in which teachers learn to initiate, respond to, manage, and evaluate a wide variety of classroom writing activities as well as work on their own writing. Specifically, participants will:
- Write daily in a variety of contexts
- Experience effective instructional strategies for teaching writing through workshops by peers and directors
- Design and demonstrate a writing workshop lesson based on best practice instruction
- Serve as peer responders for colleagues
- Read and discuss theory and practice in writing instruction
- Maintain and discuss multi-genre writing portfolios
- Publish their own writing in an institute anthology
- Submit original works for publication
- Submit a proposal to present at a local, state, or national conference
In addition to the four-week Summer Institute, participants are required to attend two pre-institute meetings on Thursday, April 17, 2008 and Thursday, May 1, 2008 from 4:00-7:00pm and an institute follow-up meeting on Tuesday, July 8, 2008, from 9:00am-12noon.
Download the Summer Institute Application Application Deadline: Friday, February 29, 2008 Interviews to be held Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The Spartanburg Writing Project is an affiliate of the National Writing Project, a national model for professional development with more than 180 sites across the United States and the world.
Please contact Tasha Thomas by e-mail at tthomas@uscupstate.edu if you have questions.