Dakota Writing Project

by Sharon Olbertson, Kilian College

Lindsay Sorben, DWP board member, and I, (Sharon Olbertson), represented DWP at the annual National Writing Project Spring Meeting in Washington, D. C. on Mar. 29-30, 2007. Over 300 representatives from about 29 states were in attendance, probably one of the largest groups ever to attend this conference.

The kickoff meeting provided delegates with packets to deliver to the legislators, including flyers describing the impact and extent of the NWP over its recent history. In 2005-2006, 7,527 programs were conducted at NWP sites. The number of educators served was 137,018. Lindsay, math teacher that she is, calculated that roughly 24,000 students have been served by the Dakota Writing Project over its history. This figure seemed meaningful to each office that we visited. (A variable which she perhaps overlooked was the number of former students who are now in the classroom as teachers, continuing to use NWP materials!)

Since I had been particularly interesting in the “Effective Strategies to Improve Writing” published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, I included a summary of this report in the legislative folders, as well as some commentary on how this affects schools. Our legislators need to see that, 1) DWP pays attention to research, and 2) Research is telling us to do things differently. Too many people still think of writing the way it was presented when they were in school.

Our visits to the legislative offices were quite satisfying. Senator Johnson, continuing to recover from his stroke and surgery, was represented by one of his aides. Erin Barry is quite knowledgeable about the writing project as well as Senator Johnson’s strong support for the program. Trying to keep Senator Johnson’s paperwork to a minimum, his staff explained that he would not be signing the letter of intent this year, although his vocal support would continue.

Since the vote on Iraq spending was on the floor that morning, we did not expect to see our legislators at all. (Those who were to speak at the kickoff meeting were not able to be there.) We met with Senator Thune’s aide, a person new to subject, but eager to learn. She appeared impressed by the fact that NWP crosses all disciplines and grade levels. Though not on the agenda, she raised the issue of merit pay. We took the opportunity to describe to her how teachers could be affected by many uncontrolled variables, thus making it hard to discern where the actual “merit” lay.

In the middle of the conversation, Senator Thune returned to his office and visited with us for some time about the National Writing Project. Once again, we stressed the broad influence of the program. Senator Thune’s interest appeared genuine, so we are hopeful that he sees NWP as a student issue, rather than a political one.

As with the other visits, we did not expect to see Representative Herseth. In addition to the crucial vote in Congress, Ms. Herseth was to be married in two days! In past years, Ms. Herseth has shown herself to be an enthusiastic supporter of the writing project, and also very cognizant of writing issues. To our pleasant surprise, Ms. Herseth returned just as we were leaving—time enough for her to express her support for NWP.

In brief, we felt we had three very productive visits in our legislative offices.

The meetings on Friday began with the featured speaker’s topic of teachers and research. Her point was that little of the research on writing was actually getting into the hands of all teachers. I found myself agreeing, based upon my own experiences. While a full-time teacher, I certainly did not take the time I should have to keep up on research. Now that I am semi-retired, I read more of the research, but am not in a position to do much with it! That is why I summarized the “Effective Strategies” report and get it into as many teacher hands as I can.

I also attended roundtable discussions on reading in the content areas and nonfiction writing. What both of them had in common was their NWP approach of relying on the expertise of the teachers in attendance. While both presenters had materials to initiate conversation, they quickly became figures secondary to the topic at hand. Time flew by as attendees gave suggestions, asked for advice, shared success stories—all the things that teachers do when they get together. I shall paraphrase one insight that I found particularly meaningful (on NCLB or education in general): “When we put our faith in scores rather than the people in the classroom, we have lost sight of what it’s all about.”

With teachers helping teachers—indeed—that’s what it’s all about!