The Hawaiʻi Writing Project is accepting applications for the 2015 Invitational Summer Institute to be held at the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College. The deadline for applications is June 15 but interested teachers are strongly encouraged to apply soon since space is limited to 20 participants.
Teachers share and apply effective teaching strategies and explore their own writing at the summer institutes and graduates become teacher leaders at their school sites, sharing best educational practices with their colleagues during meetings and workshops.
“Summer is the perfect time for teachers to refresh and re-discover the joys of writing,” said Marnie Masuda, Hawaiʻi Writing Project director and UH Maui College English instructor. “The effects last far beyond the institute’s end—participants become teacher consultants who can provide the motivation, literacy leadership,and professional development needed to improve literacy in their own schools and complexes.”
This will be the 5th year the institute has been offered at UH Maui College. Workshops will cover current theory and research on the teaching of writing, writing study groups, writing demonstration lessons and topics for teacher-research inquiry projects. The Hawaiʻi Writing Project Invitational Institute is 100 percent supported through the National Writing Project Teacher Leadership SEED grant and free to all selected participants.
“The HWP is my support system, my ʻohana. I feel fortunate to have access to a community of dynamic teachers that believe in teachers as writers,” said Pōmaikaʻi Elementary School teacher Stephanie Young, a Hawaiʻi Writing Project participant. “The experiences we shared as writers bonded us. We shared tears of struggle and tears of joy. The relationships I built are priceless. No other professional development has come close to a feeling of family.”
The Hawaiʻi Writing Project is an affiliate of the National Writing Project, whose goal is to improve writing instruction in schools across the nation, and promote the use of writing as a tool for thinking and literacy learning across disciplines.
To receive an application form or learn more about the institute, contact Marnie Masuda at (808) 984-3435, or marniem@hawaii.edu.
