Auburn University hosts first Village Writing Project institute

Auburn University hosted the first Village Writing Project institute this summer, under the direction of College of Education associate professor Mike Cook. The Village Writing Project, or VWP, is an affiliate of the National Writing Project network, the nation’s leading professional development and learning community for teacher-writers and teachers of writing.

Located in the University Writing Studio in the Ralph Brown Draughon Library, the institute was a two-week professional development experience that provided teachers with support and community for growing as both writers and educators.

The institute began with asynchronous work. Participants engaged in a pre-institute meeting and were split into book groups to encourage community-building and starting to think about teaching writing before the institute began. The groups created presentations about their book and how it connected to writing and teaching writing, and then were split into different groups for the in-person portion of the institute. Following the two-week event, the participants were regrouped a third time to engage in a new book club.

The overall goal of the institute is to provide participants with the tools, experiences and support they need to be effective storytellers and teachers while challenging the notion of what ‘traditional’ writing is and working to make it more approachable for both students and teachers.

“The ultimate hope is that they go through this and feel more empowered, more confident and more capable of being writing teachers, but also with this knowledge that there's this collaborative of people who are there to reach out to,” said Cook. “We want them to know they're not on their own and that there are people in other schools and other school districts at other grade levels they can reach out to for support.”

The VWP is fully funded in year one and through the next two years, and during this time Cook wants to build a community that continues to engage past participants while creating more opportunities. He hopes to establish youth writing camps run by former VWP participants in the coming years.

Eight educators participated in this year’s institute and said they walked away feeling more prepared and supported as teachers and writers. One participant was Emily Carlson, an eighth-grade English teacher at Opelika Middle School in Opelika, Alabama.

“I was interested in participating because it was presented as a writing project for local teachers rather than traditional professional development,” said Carlson. “I loved the idea of bringing teachers together from local schools to explore the concept of teaching writing, while being writers ourselves. It fostered a community of practice that benefited us as teachers and as humans.”

Carlson noted that she is already thinking of ways to incorporate what she learned into her classroom this fall. Like Cook, Carlson is hopeful that the VWP community will continue to grow and that more teachers will participate in the program.

“We have already met again socially as a group and I love the idea of continuing our community outside of professional development,” Carlson said. “I hope to be a poster child for VWP and encourage ALL local teachers to participate in the VWP.”