George Mason University - Home of the NVWP

The NVWP began in 1977 when George Mason University English Professor Don Gallehr discovered that the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) model of teacher-centered professional development was the solution to problems he was facing in his own teaching of writing class. Even though Don felt the class was successful, the teachers taking the class seemed unable to sustain the learning they were gaining in the course, but when Don discovered the BAWP model of professional development everything changed.

In the same year, Don, along with Larry Bowen, chair of the GMU Education Department visited the BAWP Summer Institute.  There Don saw that by keeping teachers together, continuing their professional development, and providing them with opportunities to lead, teachers were able to foster meaningful and lasting change in their schools.  Don submitted a site proposal, the George Mason University and Fairfax County Public Schools gave their support, and in 1978 the NVWP was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Since that time the NVWP has nurtured over 825 Teacher Consultants, who, after completing five weeks of intensive professional development in our Invitational Summer Institutes, have taught an estimated 800,000 students.  The NVWP has also run over 400 sections of its premier professional development course English 695 — “Writing Across the Curriculum.”  More than 7,600 teachers have taken English 695, which has been offered in 13 public school districts and at eight private schools in Northern Virginia.  Since 1978, teachers who have taken English 695 have taught approximately 900,000 students.  In addition, since 1987, more than 7,100 students from Northern Virginia have participated in NVWP Student Writers Workshop programs.

Don Gallehr and Paul Rogers at GMU, June 2011

In 2007, after thirty years of leading the NVWP, Don began looking for his successor, and after two years of searching for the right person, Don, the GMU English department, and the NVWP leadership chose Dr. Paul Rogers to join the English Faculty at GMU and become the next Director of the NVWP. After working closely with Don for three years as the Associate Director of the NVWP, in June of 2011 Paul officially became the new Director. 

Soon after the change in Directorship, in early July of 2011, Professor Rogers and NVWP Co-Directors Kim Sloan, Mary Tedrow, and Cathy Hailey convened an Invitational Advanced Summer Institute at George Mason University.  For four days many of the sites key leaders gathered to affirm and celebrate the roots of the Project, while establishing new directions for future work.  The NVWP remains committed to providing the highest quality professional development to teachers and schools, supporting teacher leadership at all levels of education, and serving young writers and families with inspiring programming. Never before has the need been greater for the kind of professional development the NVWP provides, but the capacity of the NVWP to deliver world class professional development has never been stronger. New opportunities are before us, and we invite you to join us as we continue to foster a legacy of impact throughout the schools of Northern Virginia and beyond. 

Our Mission

The mission of the Northern Virginia Writing Project is to improve writing instruction, writing practice, and learning at all educational levels; to develop teacher leaders across the disciplines and elevate their professional standing; and to provide support for young writers and their families.

Our Core Principles*

• Classroom teachers are the most trustworthy and competent authorities on what works in classrooms, and the most effective staff development programs will be those in which successful classroom teachers share their expertise with colleagues through “hands-on” demonstration lessons.

• What working teachers of writing know from their classroom experience constitutes valid professional knowledge (what Lee Shulman, former Director of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching calls “the wisdom of practice”).  Additionally, as members of the teaching profession, teachers need to challenge, validate, and enhance the authority of their experience by familiarizing themselves with current and past research, and gathering evidence to support the effectiveness of their own teaching practices.

• A successful staff development program requires the ongoing and continually renewed collaboration of teaching colleagues who will continue to share and pool their expertise beyond a few scheduled workshops or even beyond an extended summer institute.

• All teachers of writing, K-university, belong to a single, interdependent, collegial community with shared professional challenges, which will best be met through collaborative efforts based on mutual professional respect.

• Teachers of writing must write: their authority as teachers of writing must be grounded on their own personal experience as writers, persons who know first-hand the struggles and satisfactions of the writer’s task.