Our good friends at the Fall for the Book festival in partnership with George Mason University’s nationally ranked graduate writing program proposes an initiative called the Sally Merten Fellowship Program that will send trained graduate students into school classrooms to lead weekly creative writing enrichment classes and special-topic writing seminars on a regular basis.

Sally Merten, wife of George Mason University’s esteemed president, is a champion of the written word. This program, named with her support and in her honor, invites students in grades 3-12 to voluntarily participate in a project-based learning, creative writing curriculum that enhances the students’ comprehension and confidence while also teaching them some basic imagination-enhancing techniques of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry writing. No payment is required on the part of the school or the students. Fall for the Book and the Mason MFA program are raising private funding to support this new endeavor.

The school teachers who participate in this program will lend one class period a week to an MFA student or graduate who will design and lead the special writing curriculum. The MFA student or graduate is responsible for all program material, and will work with the school and teacher to meet the demands of the specific classroom.

The purpose of this communication is to gauge the level of interest at various schools as our friends at Fall for the Book plan the pilot for the new program.  We are inviting all TC and teachers in Northern Virginia to please, take a moment to answer these questions and then submit your responses by email (cut and paste the questions and your responses) to Amy Risher at Outreach@fallforthebook.org. Feel free to include comments, suggestions or questions in your responses.

Please answer the following questions with yes or no:                                                                                                                       

I would like to hear more about a writing in the schools program. ________

I would like to have my school or classroom considered for a writing in the schools program. ___________ 

If you answered yes to either of these questions, may we email you to get back in touch with you?___________   Best address to use? _________________________

The marathon, as opposed to a 26.2-mile run, led the teachers to a variety of spots – where they jotted down their reactions. The work is part of a four-week summer institute presented by the Northern Virginia Writing Project – part of the National Writing Project … The institute is designed to inspire instructors to incorporate writing into their lesson plans – whether they’re teaching math or history or other subjects, or in kindergarten or college classrooms.

Read the full article here.