40 years later, Western Pa. Writing Project still inspires, shapes teachers and students

“The best teachers of writing are teachers who write.”

Since 1984, the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP) has lived by that quote, intentionally cultivating a community for teachers across the region who want to become better writing teachers by becoming better writers. 40 years later, the program is going strong and its leadership hopes to continue to strengthen ties throughout the region.

“I think that when you do this type of work and you hear the stories of teachers, explaining how they were feeling unmotivated or unsupported in the profession, and then they found this network that gave them life and energy anew — I want to sustain that,” said Khirsten Scott, an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education who has been directing WPWP for three years.

Housed in Pitt’s School of Education, WPWP is one of 175 university-based writing project sites across the country — part of the National Writing Project, a network of educators, writers, and researchers who work to advance the teaching of writing.

Throughout its existence, the Summer Institute for Teachers has been the flagship program and bedrock of WPWP. The annual, four-week seminar allows educators to develop personal and professional writing and examine best teaching practices. Educators across all subjects, grade levels, and disciples — classroom teachers, community educators, education leaders — are selected by application, invitation, or referrals from previous members. In that month, the group participates in writing activities and workshops, working with professional writers, other educators, and collaborating with each other.

“The goal, ultimately, is to cultivate writing for those educators in order for them to feel empowered first as professionals, and as writers,” said Scott, “and then for them to be able to take these, opportunities, experiences, and energies of empowered outlooks back to their learning environments in order to boldly move their learners — be that children or adults or communities — forward through writing instruction.”

Each year for four decades a cohort of about 20 teachers from 65 school districts throughout Western Pennsylvania engages in everything from writing exercises, like poetry writing and descriptive writing, to activities like watercolor painting to inspire creative thinking.

“What we really focus on is what it means to bring the educator back into a practice of inquiry, back into a practice of creativity and imagination,” said Scott.

A community of professional writers

For Rita Wilson, a Summer Institute fellow in 1999, that month was the entry point to a now decades-long career as an author and writing educator.

Wilson decided to apply for the fellowship four years into teaching middle school at West Allegheny School District after learning about WPWP through colleagues. She wanted to become a better writing teacher, and was also intrigued by the opportunity to explore her own interest in writing.

After the seminar, she decided to pursue writing full time, getting an MFA in creative writing from Carlow University. She’s since been published in several literary magazines and outlets, published a book in 2016, and recently released her second book, “When the Only Light is the Moon,” in May.

“It really did jump start this whole other path,” said Wilson.

Like many of the educators who go through the institute, Wilson stayed active in the WPWP network for years afterwards, working on several projects to help shape and improve both WPWP and the National Writing Project. She also taught for several years in WPWP’s other core program, the Young Writers Institute, a week-long summer program where youth of all grade levels work with teachers, professional writers, and college students to develop their writing skills.

Continued involvement is built into WPWP’s model — after participating in the institute, fellows have the option to become “Teacher Leaders,” serving as consultants and assistants to support subsequent cohorts.

“It's not something that we say, ‘I did that then and then it's over.’ It's like, now you're part of this community,” said Melissa Butler, a 2002 Summer Institute fellow.

A former elementary school teacher at Pittsburgh Public Schools, Butler applied for the fellowship after a colleague who went through the program encouraged her to do it. She was eight years into her teaching career, and had an interest in writing but hadn’t seriously pursued it.

“I did not at that point say I was a writer. I didn't write anything except for journals or lesson plans. And the experience to write poems or essays or stories was scary. It was new.”

The seminar was one of her first experiences crying around other adults, she said. More than two decades later, Butler has published a number of works, including poetry, essays, and books.

Butler emphasized that much of the value of WPWP is in the culture and community fostered within the organization, which focuses on a collaborative co-teaching model that veers away from a traditional hierarchical structure and centers educators — “teachers are the best teachers of other teachers” is another WPWP slogan.

These values helped shape Butler’s approach to education before she retired in 2017, and continue to do so through her work in professional development for educators, she said.

“It's not a very common experience for educators to bring their whole selves — where the personal is allowed to be all of what it is — and where you can bring that into your reflections on teaching,” said Butler.

Taking lessons to the classroom

For Tess Riesmeyer, a 2016 Summer Institute fellow, WPWP was an opportunity to help her middle school students at Sewickley Montessori get excited about writing.

“I feared creative writing as a student. I came to it much later when I had the courage to start exploring that way,” said Riesmeyer, “I didn't want my students to be afraid of writing.”

Coming from a small school community — Sewickley Montessori currently has 73 students from preschool through 8th grade — it was helpful to collaborate with other educators from different backgrounds around shared goals, she said.

“Just everyone's real premise was, ‘I want to help students love writing,’ whether it be creatively or for, you know, research papers, information,” said Riesmeyer.

Riesmeyer has been with Sewickley Montessori for 11 years now, teaching English and humanities. She said she continues to see the impact of WPWP in her approach to teaching — like the weekly Monday morning writing workshop she holds with her class, which she said her students love. A number of her students have also participated in the Young Writers Institute.

“The Writing Project keeps me aware of opportunities for my students so that they can continue pursuing their voice as writers, which I think is just extraordinary,” said Riesmeyer.

Like Reismeyer, 2021 WPWP fellow Lisa Silverman is trying to bring joy and creativity in writing into her classroom with practices she learned from the Summer Institute, like the “writing marathon”.

“We basically get a writing partner or two and you kind of walk through the city and you just decide you want to pause somewhere and write.”

She took that activity back to her Woodland Hills high school English classroom and turned it into a scavenger hunt, sending students on a writing adventure around the school building.

“They loved that. That was a huge hit,” said Silverman.

But trying to break through the more formulaic writing practices that are often engrained in students once they get to high school is a challenge, she said.

“I have to reshift the paradigm to writing as a process. Writing is your ideas. Your ideas are important,” said Silverman, “They almost don't trust me when they get me to say it's okay if everything's not perfect in this draft. You know, so I'm fighting a battle that's this paradigm that I'm in.”

In terms of what lies ahead for WPWP, Scott is focused on expanding and strengthening relationships with school districts in the region, while deepening their roots at Pitt.

“There's so many fantastic projects across the campus and frankly, other universities in the city, that we could really mobilize and support education in the region.”

She also hopes there will be more of an effort to archive WPWP's past.

“There's so much richness in the stories that have been told across 40 years,” said Scott, “In some ways, I would argue that the writing projects can tell a history of Pittsburgh's education landscape.”

90.5 WESA’s education reporter Jillian Forstadt contributed to this report.