The Oregon Writing Project at Eastern (OWP) was founded in 1991. Since then, 146 teachers have attended the OWP Invitational Summer Writing Institute, with several hundred involved in continuity programs.  In addition, hundreds of Eastern Oregon teachers have participated in informal and formal inservice programs.  Over 1,600 students have attended the Student Writers’ Workshop, many of them setting foot on a college campus for the first time, coming from regional schools located anywhere from the Columbia River to Idaho and from Enterprise to Monument and all points between. Over the last ten years, OWP at Eastern has been able to match over $286,000 in federal support from the National Writing Project at a rate of over two to one.  Over 90% of the federal funds have gone directly to K-16 teachers throughout our region to support their efforts to teach reading and writing more effectively and to aid their professional development.

Program Offerings include:

• Four-Week Invitational Summer Writing Institutes in La Grande
• Three-Week Open Institutes in Bend
• Three-Week Open Institutes in Ontario
• Three-Week Teaching Institutes for College Faculty in La Grande
• One-Week Institutes offered through local ESDs
  
• Fall Writers’ Workshops
• Student Writers’ Workshops
• University Fellows Program
• OWP Sponsored Classroom-Based Research
• Teacher-Consultant Professional Development
• Oregon Writing Project Eastern Press
• Active participation in the Rural Sites Network of the National Writing Project
• International Teacher Exchange

OWP Leadership Roles include:

• Steering Committee
• Co-Directors
• Student Writers' Workshop Coordinators
• Community and Student Volunteers
• Publications Director and Editorial Board
• Publications Staff
• Continuity Fellows in the Summer Institutes
• National Writing Project Technology Liaison

OWP Inservice Programs:

• Reading/Writing Programs That Work
• Oregon’s Reading, Writing, and Speaking Standards
• Teaching Evaluative and Inferential Reading Skills
• Establishing Effective Classroom Reading/Writing Workshops
• Employing Technology to Enhance Reading and Writing
• Successful Approaches to Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum
• Building a Multi-Genre/Multimedia, Interdisciplinary Approach to Creating Oregon Work Samples

Each summer OWP offers an intensive 6-credit institute designed for teachers of all subject areas and grade levels (K-university) who wish to develop their own writing skills and to improve their effectiveness in teaching writing or using writing to learn.  The Summer Institute is modeled on the nationally acclaimed program at the Bay Area Writing Project, University of California at Berkeley, and adheres to the guiding principles of the National Writing Project:

• the best teachers of teachers are themselves classroom teachers
• writing enhances learning in all areas
• the best teachers of writing are themselves writers
• the best teachers of reading are themselves readers
• effective staff development programs are on-going and systematic, bringing teachers together regularly throughout their careers to test and evaluate the best practices of other teachers and the continuing developments in the field

• The National Writing Project
• The NWP Rural Sites Network
• Consortium of OR Writing Projects

Return to OWP.