Educators from across the region gathered recently to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project (WMWP), a professional learning network for PreK through college teachers based in the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 1993.
A local site of the National Writing Project (NWP), WMWP follows a “teachers teaching teachers” model, and over the past three decades, it has offered hundreds of institutes, conferences, workshops, and graduate courses for teachers by teachers and partnered with dozens of schools and districts, as well as the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Thousands of Massachusetts educators and students have been impacted by WMWP initiatives.
Mementos of past events surrounded participants at the May 20 celebration. A slideshow featured group portraits of Summer Leadership Institute cohorts going back to the beginning. At NWP sites, the summer institute and its school-year extensions constitute the gateway experience, during which educators across schools, grade levels and subjects write and learn together, share and reflect on their teaching practices, engage in action research, and present to their colleagues, thus earning their “teacher-consultant” credentials. I attended WMWP’s second summer institute in 1994, and it changed the course of my career, enhancing my skills and my identity as a writer, researcher and leader. WMWP has been at the center of my professional life ever since.
Other displays at the gathering included an interactive digital map showing locations across the state where WMWP has offered programs and a very long table of artifacts that featured anthologies of students’ and teachers’ writing. A series of speakers shared their recollections of past projects, many of them collaborations with NWP and institutions such as the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights, and the Collaborative for Educational Services.
It was also a time for remembering WMWP’s late founders: Professor Charles Moran, who served as site director for a decade and mentor to hundreds of educators for much longer; and Patricia Hunter, a Springfield teacher who pioneered the site’s school-based professional development program and convinced dozens of classrooms teachers (including me) that they could lead workshops and courses for their peers. Charlie and Pat’s hard work and vision paved the way for WMWP initiatives ranging from writing in the content areas and integrating technology to supporting English Language Learners and developing anti-racist teaching practices.
The anniversary celebration, which took place at Westfield State University, also served as a transition, because WMWP is moving to WSU in the coming year. While I must admit to feeling sad that UMass Amherst, my three-time alma mater, is no longer able to support the program, I am encouraged that the Westfield team, led by incoming site director Professor Jennifer DiGrazia, is ready and eager to continue the work and take it in new directions, perhaps for 30 more years. Educators interested in attending the 2023 Summer Leadership Institute, the first at WSU, can learn more about it and access the application form at www.umass.edu/wmwp/.
One of my tasks for this summer is to excavate the WMWP office I shared in UMass’s South College. Here is a congratulatory letter from a state representative; over there is a Literacy Award from the Library of Congress. A shelf in one corner holds half a dozen thick binders, curriculum guides in English, math, science and history, developed by teacher-consultants with and for faculty in Massachusetts’ Department of Youth Services schools. Three stuffed bookcases in the opposite corner contain WMWP’s professional library, where hundreds of institute participants have browsed and borrowed books. Every object in the room tells a story, and it’s the same story, of connection and collaboration with colleagues “to create a professional community,” as WMWP’s mission statement says, “where teachers and other educators feel welcomed to come together to deepen individual and collective experiences as writers and our understanding of teaching and learning in order to challenge and transform our practice.” Long may this beloved community continue to grow and thrive!
Bruce M. Penniman, Ed.D., a WMWP teacher-consultant and Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of Writing Coordinator, has twice served as site director of the program and lecturer at UMass Amherst. He is a retired teacher of English at Amherst Regional High School, where he currently serves as co-advisor of the Sene-Gambian Scholars exchange program. He can be reached at penniman@umass.edu.