In the day and
age when our students inner voice is being drowned by television and
video games, we need the National Writing Project more than ever. We
need this organization to help us grow and adapt to the changing
educational landscape set before us. I was disheartened in September
when I asked my students if they listened to their inner voice when they
wrote in their classes. They looked at me blankly, as if to say,
"Inner voice? What inner voice?" I explained to them that it is the
voice that runs through your head when you read a story to yourself.
So, at that, I became determined to help my students find their inner
voices. Here is the interesting part...I'm their science teacher!
Writing is ESSENTIAL in all education. This is the message I absorbed
this past summer as part of the Summer Institute provided by our local
writing project. Now several months later, the majority of my students
have found their voice. They enjoy writing. They are writing on their
own. Without the training I received from the National Writing Project
and the Endless Mountains Writing Project, I would have never had the
knowledge and strength to make this amazing change for my students. I
am a writer. They are becoming writers and we are all better people for
it.
In the day and age when our students inner voice is being drowned by television and video games, we need the National Writing Project more than ever. We need this organization to help us grow and adapt to the changing educational landscape set before us. I was disheartened in September when I asked my students if they listened to their inner voice when they wrote in their classes. They looked at me blankly, as if to say, "Inner voice? What inner voice?" I explained to them that it is the voice that runs through your head when you read a story to yourself. So, at that, I became determined to help my students find their inner voices. Here is the interesting part...I'm their science teacher! Writing is ESSENTIAL in all education. This is the message I absorbed this past summer as part of the Summer Institute provided by our local writing project. Now several months later, the majority of my students have found their voice. They enjoy writing. They are writing on their own. Without the training I received from the National Writing Project and the Endless Mountains Writing Project, I would have never had the knowledge and strength to make this amazing change for my students. I am a writer. They are becoming writers and we are all better people for it.
Tom Perry
Endless Mountains Writing Project
Mansfield University, Pennsylvania