Persuasive writing, technical writing, creative writing,
journalismall have their place in education and are useful in
different capacities. Yet, students across all fields of
learning must develop basic writing skills in order to excel and
communicate effectively. So why then, did President Obama sign a
bill to cut all federal funding to the National Writing Project
earlier this month? This all-encompassing program is devoted to
teacher development and strengthening writing skills across
subjects for students at all grade levels. The NWP’s 2009 annual
survey reports that throughout the nation, program sites (see
pages 12-15) are set up on the campuses of over 200 colleges and
universities, with over 70,000 teachers serving the program’s
objectives. Each year, 1. 4 million students and 130,000
teachers gain academic and professional development through the
NWP. It’s by no means a small program, and results have
continuously showed that enrolled students displayed an
improvement in basic writing skills by the