- Consider NCoW assignments for your writing classes, or other relevant courses, such as literature, sociology, psychology, education, history, etc.
- Recruit local school teachers to consider NCoW assignments for themselves or their students
- Have students (or other groups?) write something about how writing has affected their life, about a writing teacher that inspired them, a literacy experience, etc.
- Have students conduct interviews with peers to learn about writing outside of school
- Have students conduct interviews of family, perhaps even a generational oral history that focuses on writing
- Have students interview individuals from the community
- Consider interviews of employers to learn about how writing is used on the job, or interview people in local organizations to explore the roles of writing
- Consider a project similar to "This I believe" or "This American Life," audio or text, that focuses on writing—how it is learned and used
- Talk with us: We’d be very interested in hearing about your experiences with writing. If you’d be willing, this is in some ways the most important thing you can do to help. The conversations will be informal, and will just give you the chance to help us create a well-rounded picture of how, why, and when people write—and why they find it useful, therapeutic, difficult, inspiring, and so on . . . .
- Create a video: If you’d like to join in the conversation in another way, you can send us your videos of conversations about writing. It doesn’t require lots of expertise or equipment, and many of us have enlisted the help of communications students and faculty who have special expertise in these technologies Some suggestions to get you started are included below—but feel free to be creative.
- Audio Tape interviews or writers reading from their writing. One of the misconceptions about writing is that people are writing less than they used to. But that is only true if we use a very narrow understanding of writing. A good way to overcome this shortsighted understanding of the state of writing is through examples. So, interview people from all walks of life about how writing enhances their life, their work, or their relationships. Encourage them to think about the composing they do in many modes—electronic and visual as well as text-based. Or, you might ask people to read from their work. Both interviews and readings can be collected using widely available and inexpensive digital audio recorders that create easily distributed sound files.
- Collect written examples of people reflecting on the writing, in all its forms, they do in their our daily lives. We’ll provide a forum for showcasing these reflections, showing how omnipresent the art of writing remains.
- Sponsor local writing initiatives, and then tell us about them. Consider developing a writing festival, workshop, discussion group or reading in your area, and document that event in writing, through news coverage of the event, or by video or audio taping. NCoW will provide a central location to showcase these events. We envision videos or still photographs of the events posted to our site, PDF files of news stories, and narratives about the events.
- Sponsor a writing contest, and let us help us publicize it. Writing contests can provide initiatives for writing of all sorts, so don’t limit yourself to “creative writing” (what writing isn’t creative, after all?). Think about essay contests, letter writing contests (including letters to the editors), editorial and political writings, literacy narratives (in which people talk about their own experiences learning to write), etc.
- Share innovative writing projects with other teachers. We’ll provide a space for teachers to exchange ideas about innovative assignments and methods.
- Be Creative. The above are just some examples. Come up with more on your own and tell us about them!
For More Information or advice, Contact us
NCoW content:
- Dominic Delli Carpini (dcarpini@ycp.edu)
- Linda Adler-Kassner (linda.adler-kassner@emich.edu)
- Darsie Bowden (DBOWDEN@depaul.edu)
NCoW technical/editing:
- Pete Vandenberg (pvandenb@depaul.edu)