Who We Are

The Rhode Island Writing Project builds on the model of "teachers teaching teachers." Over 400 teachers in Rhode Island have attended our summer institutes and are qualified to become teacher consultants; in that capacity they visit schools and work with other teachers across the state. Last year, 60 teachers attended our summer programs, 125 were at our annual spring conference, and another 1000 attended some form of workshop or school program that we sponsored.

The Rhode Island Writing Project and the Standards Movement

Current school reform efforts have focused very significantly on the articulation of standards and on clear programs for assessment. What we think is very important, however, is an overlooked passage in the documents defining the New Standards. "The standards are intended to focus attention on what is important but not to imply that the standards themselves should provide the organizing structure for the curriculum" (7). The standards are neither a curriculum nor a pedagogy. When we provide professional development for teachers, we provide the curricular and pedagogical support for achieving the standards. If we want students to become sophisticated readers and writers, what activities will help us? Assessment alone is not teaching; rubrics will not automatically provide the experience on which changed performance rests. We will need strategies and practices to create the environments in which students extend and enlarge their capacities as readers and writers. Engaged, active classrooms remain at the heart of that enterprise. So, Rhode Island Writing Project workshops are standards-based, but they focus on curriculum and pedagogy: how to get from here to there.