Visit Writing Centers’ National Galleries of Writing and other NDoW sites at http://writingcenters.org/2009/10/writing-center-ndow-galleries-submit-your-link-today-ndow-is-october-20/ .

Dear Writing Center Colleagues,

Perhaps you’re still planning your celebration for the National Day on Writing. The IWCA team to promote NDoW is at no loss for ideas–

Karl Fornes, The University of South Carolina Aiken Writing Center, has suggested a writing marathon with a canned food drive for a local charity. Karl connects such a move as connected to service learning projects at his university.

Tiffany Rousculp, Salt Lake Community College Writing Center, has suggested the following:

• Huge, wall-size, poster that provides a space for collaborative writing prompts such as:

a.       Draw a visual representation of the brain/mind/body as it writes
b.      A prompt that asks for responses to “A world without writing…”
c.       “If I taught writing at XX College/University, I would…” that students can respond to…

• Hand out stickers that say “I’m a writer” or  “I write” to students/community members, etc.  (Our registration cards say “I Write Stuff” on them.)

• Have a “Twitter-day” for students where they tweet all day about when they write, see writing, read writing

• Do a “collection point” in the writing center that can physically show the amount of writing students do in, say, one week. It would not be eco-friendly, because it would be a lot of paper, but maybe some way to show the sheer amount of writing students do; notes, drafts, essays, exams…etc.

• If not the collection point for student writing, a collection point for found writing—a week where students/community members bring in writing that they find.

• A reading during the last week (or perhaps on the actual day of writing), open-mic, drop in, theme: “Writing is…”

If you can’t implement all these good ideas this year, there’s always next year. Remember NDoW is an annual celebration!

Whatever you do, do it NOW, errrr, we mean NDoW! :-)

Yours,

Barb Toth, Karl Fornes, Tiffany Rousculp, and Shannon Carter

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A Suggestion:

To prepare for NDoW, we have a suggestion: write a check—that’s writing, right? To celebrate the power of writing and how it can bring joy to and diminish the suffering of others, let’s write a check to our favorite charity!

However great the amount, however small, write a check to your favorite charity this week. There are thousands of local, national, and international charities: Make-A-Wish, Homeless Kids, Humane Societies, Breast Cancer Awareness, Pregnancy Centers, Literacy Foundations, Habitat for Humanity, the hunger site.com  . . . Just google “charities” if you’re looking for a new beneficiary.

Think about it: if we each write a check this week, we can both show our support for writing and help others. What a statement that would be.

We all know that writing helps others anyway.  But here’s a chance to make a special statement, one that we make together and in celebration of the good that writing can do!

Please do it now, err we mean NDoW!

–From the IWCA Team for promotion of NDoW:  Barbara Toth (BGSU), Tiffany Rousculp (SLCC), Shannon Carter (TAMU/Commerce), Karl Fornes (USCA)

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Do it Now . . . I mean NDoW!

Dear Writing Center Colleagues,

If you haven’t set up a local gallery at the National Gallery of Writing to showcase–and celebrate–writing in your centers, your schools, and your communities, do it now!

You can start a gallery by visiting this site: .

There are 770 galleries up so far . . . how great would it be to have a majority come from writing centers!

IWCA is hoping that the effect of writing center participation in the National Day on Writing will be resounding: NCTE will see the effects of the collective efforts of writing centers, and the nation will see how seriously we writing professionals take our work!

Remember: October 20 is the day!

–Barbara Toth, Bowling Green State University Writing Center for IWCA

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Dear Writing Center Colleagues,

If you haven’t set up a local gallery at the NCTE National Gallery of Writing to showcase—and celebrate–writing in your centers, your schools, and your communities, do it now!

You can start a gallery by visiting this site: http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting/gallery.

What a statement it would make to have a majority come from writing centers!

You can set up multiple galleries: for your writing consultants, for students, for administrators, for residents in senior homes, for religious organizations—for anyone who would benefit from a forum and readership. The galleries will remain open into 2010.

IWCA is hoping that the effect of writing center participation in the National Day on Writing will be resounding: NCTE will see the effects of the collective efforts of writing centers, and the nation will see how seriously we writing professionals take our work!

Keep your eye out for the IWCA NDoW blog to be posted on the IWCA website on October 20! Details will follow.

Remember: October 20 is NDoW!

Yours in the world of writing, Barbara Toth, Bowling Green State University Writing Center, for IWCA

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NDoW Suggestions:

·     Given economic challenges, consider providing a resume and cover letter workshop for your larger community. Perhaps a local restaurant or community library would house the workshop; writing center staff could work with the community members to draft resumes and get them online.

·     Some local low-security prisons allow community service projects.  In addition, some may allow a National Day of Writing online forum to be created. Contact your local prisoner community service advisor for more information. For example, the Ohio Prisoner Community Service office can be accessed at http://www.drc.state.oh.us/web/commserv.htm .

·     Contacting an activities director at a local senior home to discuss how residents could join in the celebration is another idea. Sometimes seniors can’t write and need someone to write letters for them; sometimes they just need the encouragement (that writing center staff are famous for) to begin writing of various kinds including memoirs.

·     Contacting an orphanage in your area is another way to celebrate the day! Just googling orphanages in your area will give you an idea of how many there are and which one to contact.  You might create an NCTE gallery for submissions (http://galleryofwriting.org/).

From Barbara Toth (BGSU), Tiffany Rousculp (SLCC), Shannon Carter (TAMU/ Commerce), Karl Fornes (USCA)

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National Day on Writing Letter from Barb Toth, Coordinator of IWCA’s National Day on Writing Committee:

Dear Writing Center Colleagues,

I’m emailing now as part of an IWCA committee responsible for involving writing center participation in the National Day on Writing scheduled on October 20. As part of our efforts, we’ve contacted the chairs of your regional writing center associations–to do a few things:

1. to remind you about the date for the National Day on Writing, October 20 to encourage you to set up a local gallery on the NCTE website (if you have not already done so) and to use the gallery to publish elicited writing submissions from your region. See: http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting/gallery. Individual writing centers can also set up local galleries.

and

2. to encourage you to think about ways that the day can be celebrated in your region and in your writing center. In short, we’re hoping you’ll celebrate the National Day on Writing however it suits your location and schedules. I know Michele Eodice, president of the IWCA, has encouraged celebrations of the day not only in academic settings but in the larger communities as well.

My IWCA colleagues Karl Fornes (karlf@usca.edu), Tiffany Rousculp (tiffany.rousculp@slcc.edu), Shannon Carter (Shannon_Carter@tamu-commerce.edu) and I will support you and will be sharing ideas and suggestions that we hear about from you and your regional reps. Of course, you can always just share directly.

To unify our efforts, we’ve created a logo that can be adapted to bookmarks, letterhead, T-shirts, buttons, flyers, posters, etc.  Hope you like it and use it in multiple ways!

In the spirit of brainstorming, below are some projects the Bowling Green State University Writing Center will be involved in:

1. We’ve set up a local NCTE gallery, in conjunction with the BGSU Human Relations Commission; we’re eliciting writing of various genres on the topic of respect. We’ve managed to garner prize money for the best submissions.

2. BGSU writing consultants will visit a local senior home during the week of Oct. 20 and will work with the residents as they write various genres, including memoirs.

3. BGSU has a developed Second Life (virtual) campus, so we’re also featuring this day in various ways in the SL forum as well.

Our  hope is that each region and writing center can participate in a meaningful way—however great, however small. As I think you’d agree, sharing or enjoying the importance of writing with one person is an apt and appropriate celebration of writing. In other words, we’re not asking you to take on huge responsibilities. Simply put, we’re asking you to consider participating as you, and those you serve both in your region, your writing center, and your community, are able.

I’m hoping that the effect of our participation in the National Day on Writing will be resounding: NCTE will see the effects of the collective efforts of writing centers; and the nation, I think, will see how seriously we writing professionals take our work!

More to come–stay tuned!!

Thank you!

Yours in the worlds of writing centers,

Barbara Toth

Visit the National Day on Writing Contribution page at http://www.galleryofwriting.org/contribute.php .

To save this logo for use in letterhead or on websites, right-click on the image and save to your hard drive or other disk: