Our Ongoing Efforts

The Summer Writing Institute (SWI)

Renewal events

Outreach events

Our SWI s a two-week course we offer at the University of Manitoba every other summer, modeled after the Summer Writing Institute offered by the National Writing Project (NWP). In nearly 175 university-based writing project sites across the United States and internationally, teachers come together every summer to write—and to grow their practice as teachers of writing. Here in Manitoba, the SWI offers an immersive professional learning experience, designed to enhance professional inquiry and critical pedagogy in writing and to support teachers in becoming more confident and versatile writers themselves.

Renewal events are held for past summer writing institute participants to reconnect with one another and to inspire and inform our writing and teaching of writing.

Outreach events are open to the public with the goal of creating collective experiences for writers and teachers of writing.

Research

The Manitoba Writing Project was launched in February 2014 with a series of conversations across institutions, disciplines, and borders about writing in the province of Manitoba. Funded by a grant from the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities, the Passions, Pedagogies, and Publics Research series focused on bringing together K-12 teachers and university teachers across campus to share the work they were doing in writing. Since then, our work has continued to generate dialogue around writing that is both interdisciplinary and inter-institutional in nature.

We have looked more deeply at writing in the disciplines through four events that have given participants an opportunity to see how writing is being taught and used as a tool for learning in various disciplines, to explore connections to their own teaching contexts, and to generate strategies and recommendations for understanding and teaching writing in the province—from Kindergarten through post-secondary education.

Building Partnerships

We seek to collaborate with educators, writers, community organizations, museums, and others to create writing projects that develop and support a professional network of educators committed to engaging their students in writing for/as social justice and human rights.

One particular success for The Manitoba Writing Project has been in developing a partnership with the National Writing Project (NWP), the most successful professional learning program in the United States over its fifty year existence. In 2018, MBWP became the first NWP Associated International Site in Canada, with a uniquely Manitoban identity, rooted in the legacy of teacher activism in the province.

Inquiry

We are committed to an inquiry stance, approaching writing and the teaching of writing as a form of teacher-research. We believe teacher inquiry contributes to a profession that values teachers as theorists, as producers of curriculum and materials, and as activists for their students and communities.

Community

Manitoba children and youth are at the centre of the MBWP. The goal of the MBWP community is to contribute directly to educating and empowering young people to think critically, develop passion about human rights issues, and identify as writers who can effectively communicate and offer their voices in public dialogue as citizens.

Place, Power, and Pedagogy

The Manitoba Writing Project seeks to support educators in research and curriculum development related to place, power, and pedagogy.

Teachers who participate in Summer Institutes will be expected to play a vital role in leading sustained efforts to enact pedagogies of critical literacy and social justice in their schools. With ongoing support and programming from the MBWP, Manitoba Writing Project teacher-leaders will study and share effective practices, work collaboratively with other educators, design resources, and take on new roles in their teaching contexts.

Teacher Leadership

While the Summer Institutes are integral to building capacity in the province for a writing project model that values “teachers teaching teachers”, we understand that such a project needs to provide educators with ongoing support and resources to effect change.

Rather than a single professional development day, teacher-leaders can expect ongoing communication, support, and collaborative opportunities throughout the entirety of the school year.

The MBWP relies on the ongoing work, collaboration, and sharing of its teacher participants. Our professional network continues to grow as teachers create presentations for others, make available their resources, and tell the stories of their classrooms.