Dakota Writing Project

by Michelle Rogge Gannon, DWP Director

Karen Rahn (Rutland Public School) and I attended the National Writing Project Annual Meeting in New York City on November 15-17, 2007. Anne Moege (Mitchell Middle School), who, as the president of the South Dakota Council of Teachers of English, was attending the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference, also made a point of attending sessions in the NWP strand of NCTE.

Two Thursday sessions that I attended were "Inquiry and Reflection in the Summer Invitational Institute" and "Organizing, Developing, and Planning for Inservice." The first got me thinking about how we can facilitate inquiry and reflection more effectively in our summer institute; the second provided a number of strong examples on how to do inservice in the schools. As usual, I learned a lot while also absorbing the atmosphere of a new place--in this instance, the very exciting New York City.