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About
The California Writing Project’s (CWP) professional development model has stood the test of time and is the premier effort to improve writing in California. For 30 years, the CWP has made improving the quality of writing and learning its central mission. However, in the last decade, both “the teaching and practice of writing,” according to The National Commission on Writing in America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, have been increasingly shortchanged.
Recognition that writing must be a central focus in all classrooms, if schools are to improve student performance, is gaining ground nationally and in California.
- When California’s 2002 NAEP writing scores were released, the results, while showing a slight improvement over 1998, revealed that only 23% of the eighth grade students tested, scored at the proficient or above level. In response to these scores, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, commented, “...these results underscore the need for a much stronger statewide focus on writing.”
- The California High School Exit Exam, which includes a writing component, will become the standard for graduation in 2006.
- In 2005, the new SAT exam for college-bound students will include a written essay requirement.
- In its second report, Writing: A Ticket to Work... or a Ticket Out, A Survey of Business Leaders, the National Commission on Writing noted, “A survey of 120 major American corporations employing nearly 8 million people concludes that in today’s workplace writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for hiring and promotion among salaried (i.e., professional) employees.”
- In the spring of 2004, Superintendent O’Connell launched a High Performing High School Initiative centered on raising expectations for all students by providing a rigorous and relevant standards-based curriculum.
- The National Commission on Writing, in its report, The Neglected “R”: The Need for a Writing Revolution, urged the nation’s leaders to “put writing squarely at the center of the school agenda.”
To address these challenges, the California Writing Project invites secondary teachers and administrators to partner with us in the CWP Writing Improvement Initiative. As partners, schools and local writing projects will work toward ensuring that every student is taught by a highly skilled teacher of writing. Using a model of university-school collaboration and summer and school year programs, CWP will provide standards-aligned, nationally tested and researched approaches to improving the writing and learning of all students, in all disciplines. Together, we will invest in the academic promise and potential of California’s secondary students.
 Click here to download a copy of About the CWP Writing Improvement Initiative.
Click here to download a copy of Programs of the CWP Writing Improvement Initiative.
Click here to download a copy of Rationale for the CWP Writing Improvement Initiative.
Click here to download a copy of CWP At Work: Snapshots of Effectiveness and Impact |
