Penn GSE | The Philadelphia Writing Project

The Mission of the Philadelphia Writing Project

The mission of the Philadelphia Writing Project is to enhance the teaching of writing as a critical tool for learning in all Philadelphia schools.

Further, our mission is to support and provide high quality professional development based on current literacy research while encouraging inquiry and leadership in and across classrooms and schools.

About PhilWP

The Philadelphia Writing Project, located at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, is a site of the National Writing Project. It is a growing teacher network of over 600 K-12 teacher consultants who work in a variety of ways with teachers and other educators to explore literacy, writing, teaching and learning in their classrooms and schools regardless of grade or discipline.

PhilWP sponsors a broad array of programs which focus on the teaching of writing and using writing as a critical tool for learning that include summer institutes, summer practicum schools, seminars, workshops, programs for teachers of English language learners, continuing education courses, study groups, teacher research communities and social action forums. We have partnered with individual public, charter and parochial schools, school district offices, the PA Department of Education, IBM, the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, the National Writing Project, Philadelphia GEAR UP, WomenMatter, the Philadelphia Education Fund and many other organizations to provide professional development to teachers and administrators.

The Directors of the Philadelphia Writing Project are Dr. Kathy Schultz, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, and Vanessa Brown, a teacher on special assignment from the School District of Philadelphia. The Co-Director for Continuity Programs is Teri Hines. The Co-Director for Professional Develpoment is Christina Puntel. Miriam Harris is the Administrative Assistant.

Since 1986, PhilWP has selected a Teacher Consultant to serve full-time as the PhilWP Scholar at the Graduate School of Education. Supported by a fellowship provided in part by the Dean of the Graduate School of Education, the Scholar spends two semesters on leave from the School District of Philadelphia to take graduate level courses through the Reading, Writing and Literacy Program in the Language in Education Division or the Foundations and Practices of Education Division. During this time the Scholar provides leadership to the site in a number of creative ways. The PhilWP Scholar for 2007-2008 is Annette Sample.

Five former PhilWP Scholars have completed their doctoral programs and continue to work in schools and universities across the country.and

The National Writing Project was founded in San Francisco, in 1973. The goals of the National Writing Project are:

There are currently 197 National Writing Project sites located in each of the fifty states. Last year local Writing Project sites served 137,018 participants in a total of 7,527 sites.

The National Writing Project supports the diverse interests and needs of schools and local writing projects through a variety of focused mini-grants, programs, initiatives and networks such as the Urban Sites Network, Rural Sites Network, English Language Learners Network, Teacher Inquiry Communities Network, and the Technology Liaisons Network.