Today people write as never before—texting, on blogs, with video cameras and cell phones, and, yes, even with traditional pen and paper. People write at home, at work, inside and out of school.
Writing in the 21st Century, a new report by Kathleen Blake Yancey, NCTE Past President and writing researcher and writing faculty member, Florida State University, discusses writing in school, the workplace, and civic society (see the press release, "Writing Today Is Everybody's Business).
To further celebrate writing, NCTE also will announce the National Day on Writing (), the National Gallery of Writing, and the inception of the annual National High School, College and University Writing Awards in partnership with The Norman Mailer Writers Colony (http://www.nmwcolony.org/mailerAwards/nationalAcademic/).
National Day on Writing
National High School, College, and Univeristy Writing Awards (Norman Mailer Writers Colony)
Writing Today Is Everybody's Business
Writing in the 21st Century
On Monday, February 23, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. EST, the National Council of Teachers of English, representing 50,000 members worldwide, will release the report
Attend this event at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor, Zenger Room, Washington, D.C. Please RSVP to Stacey Novelli at snovelli@ncte.org by February 20.
Bestselling author Gay Talese; Thomas F. Staley, the director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; teacher Dan Brown and student Mansur Muhammad, from SEED Public Charter School, Washington, D.C.; and NCTE Executive Director Kent Williamson will join report author to discuss the centrality of writing in school, the workplace, and civic society.
To draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and to help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft, NCTE is working to establish October 20, 2009, as the National Day on Writing. To celebrate composition in all its forms, we are inviting diverse participants—students, teachers, parents, grandparents, service and industrial workers, managers, business owners, legislators, retirees, and many more—to submit a piece of writing to the National Gallery of Writing.
Today as people continue to write using new and old tools, we need to develop new models of writing; design a new curriculum supporting those models; and create models for teaching that curriculum. Our schools and our nation need to recognize and validate the many ways we all are writing.