Activists in Disguise: Curriculum Reform and the National Writing Project

• In Event: Imagining Education Differently

Abstract

Six years after the founding of AESA, the National Writing Project (NWP) began at the University of California Berkley as a grassroots curriculum reform effort in which practicing teachers shared progressive approaches in writing instruction with other teachers. Throughout its history, the NWP shared with AESA many underlying principles rooted in critical pedagogy. Despite recent reductions in size and funding, this grassroots teacher-to-teacher curriculum reform effort has enjoyed success with 200 sites in 50 states engaging in the same reform efforts pioneered at the Berkley site. Given the relative historical success of the NWP when compared to other curriculum reform efforts, AESA as an organization and as individual members may benefit from examining the history of how the NWP has historically succeed in its reform efforts.

Authors

• Richard Hartsell, University of South Carolina Upstate

• Sarah Hunt-Barron, Upstate Writing Project