Call for Submissions
WPA Gallery of the NCTE National Gallery of Writing
“Effective Writing Programs Make for Effective Writing”
What is the National Gallery of Writing? The National Gallery of Writing (http://galleryofwriting.org/), created by NCTE, will be a widely-publicized effort to demonstrate the diversity of writing in which people are involved every day. WPA is a national partner in the NGoW and has its own gallery. The audience for the National Gallery of Writing is the public writ large -- anyone who is interested in what writers and writing teachers do. NCTE anticipates extensive coverage of the NGoW beginning in October 2009, when the Gallery is unveiled to the public.
We invite submissions to WPA’s Gallery that demonstrate and elaborate its theme, “Effective Writing Programs Make for Effective Writing.”
You can see the WPA Gallery entrance portal here: http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/council_of_writing_program_adminis...
Why Should You Participate?
As WPAs, we know that college and university writing programs connect writing teachers, researchers, and students by providing innovative, informed, visible writing instruction throughout students’ college studies. But we don’t often get a chance to share how we do this work with an audience outside our institution. The Gallery provides us this opportunity. The Gallery will receive extensive press coverage and be viewed by millions of people across the U.S. This is an opportunity to share with those large audiences how your program accomplishes the good work it does.
In other words, by submitting documents to the WPA Gallery, we can demonstrate to others outside of our writing programs and institutions how writing programs help students become more effective writers in college, careers, and communities.
What Might You Contribute to WPA’s Gallery?
Each contributor to the NGoW may submit one document (up to 10 megabytes). For inclusion in the WPA Gallery, contributions must reflect the theme, “Effective Writing Programs Make for Effective Writing.” They should communicate to an audience outside of the program a clear message about how your writing program makes for effective writing. Contributions may be newly-created documents of the types listed below (or others), or existing documents. Submissions might include (but are not limited to):
Program Products and Artifacts
Program products or artifacts include texts -- films, news packages, white papers, assessment summaries, or other documents -- that demonstrate the value of a writing program, its special characteristics, or its particular successes. They might also include records or videos of student celebrations of writing or other “products” of the writing program, including collections of student writing that are framed to make clear how that writing reflects the writing course/program in which students created it.
Program Documents
Program documents are texts used inside the program that, when framed for readers, can demonstrate how your writing program makes for effective writing. Outcomes statements, faculty development strategies and handouts or portions of faculty handbooks, lesson plans and classroom activities, instructor commentary on writing, systems of and rubrics for portfolio assessment, and other documents of this sort might be compiled and prefaced to showcase the workings of how WPAs and writing faculty think about writing instruction and build their programs on best practices.
Created Documents
You might contribute a text created expressly for submission to the Gallery (which might also be of use in your own institution or community). Such purpose-built documents might be demonstrations of a program that bring together WPA, instructor, and student voices and work to show a program’s various facets and character.
Personal Reflections The WPA Gallery welcomes personal reflections (written by instructors, administrators, and/or students) on the nature of writing program work and the project and effect of college writing instruction.
How Do You Contribute?
Make contributions to the WPA Gallery through the National Gallery web site (http://www.galleryofwriting.org/). Click on “Contribute My Writing,” register for an account, and follow the prompts. You will be prompted to select a Gallery for your contribution; choose “Council of Writing Program Administrators” and upload your file.
Submissions to the WPA Gallery will, per NCTE policy, be reviewed by the gallery curators (Doug Downs, Joe Bizup, and Heidi Estrem). Submissions will become visible when NCTE unveils the National Gallery of Writing to the public on October 20, 2009, the National Day on Writing.
While the NGoW accepts submissions in a range of formats, NCTE will convert all submissions to pdf documents. We therefore recommend that you submit your contribution as a pdf to ensure that it is formatted properly.
Please note that you may only submit one document from a given e-mail address. If you are submitting a document to the WPA Gallery on behalf of your writing program, consider using an official or institutional e-mail address to do so.
For any questions, contact Doug Downs, NDoW lead curator, at downs@english.montana.edu or 406-994-5193.