Writing Project Inspires New York Times Writer

Publication: The New York Times
Date: February 26, 2010

Summary: Katherine Schulten, a teacher-consultant with the New York City Writing Project and a writer for The New York Times's blog The Learning Network, recalls how the NWP shaped her teaching style and her students' ability to "think in writing."

Excerpt from Article

It was the first time anyone had ever asked me to "think in writing," the first time I'd had a teacher who was more interested in the quality of thought in a first draft than the mechanics, and, most important, the first time I understood that there wasn't an official answer to the question of what a text "meant."

Today this technique might be called "freewriting" and most American kids would be familiar with some variation of it, but in that time and place it was a remarkable thing to ask teenagers to do.

When I had a classroom of my own and learned of the work of the National Writing Project, I joined my local site and have been asking students to "think in writing" ever since.

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Read How Did Your Teachers Shape Who You Are as an Educator? in the New York Times.