Celebrate Writing!

1. Join a Celebration of Writing Celebrate Writing! National Day On Writing October 20, 2010 The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has organized the National Day on Writing to bring attention to the variety of writing that is done today as well as the continued importance of writing in our global society. For more information on the National Day on Writing, please go to http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting/celebrate

2. Suggestions for Schools/Teachers Interested in Participating • Organize a Drop Everything and Write event, similar to Drop Everything and Read (DEAR), at your school that may include the following: • Designating a time for the entire school body, students and faculty, to write • Encouraging commitment of the entire school body to write for a specified amount of time, at some point during the day • Writing about topics that students know about and care about • Writing about an assigned topic • Writing in a specific genre • Writing for a particular purpose • Writing friendly letters to a peer, a teacher, or a colleague • Calculating the total number of minutes of writing done by the school body during the day. • Celebrate local or favorite authors as a school or in individual classrooms by doing any of the following: • Invite an author to speak at your school or in your classroom • Research an author to learn how he or she became interested in writing, finds topics for writing, uses a writing process, etc. • Write and send a letter to an author • Write a response or review of a book or a piece of poetry. Celebrate Writing!

3. More Suggestions for Schools/Teachers Interested in Participating • Organize an event to share student writing at your school or in your classroom that may include the following: • Sharing writing pieces in large group or small group settings • Writers telling listeners what their pieces are about, what they like about the pieces, and where they need help • Listeners telling writers what they like about the piece, what it reminds them of, and questions that they have • Writers reading selected pieces to special guests such as parents, elected officials, school faculty, etc. • Post writing to the National Gallery of Writing • The NCTE will unveil an online National Gallery of writing on October 20, 2010. http://galleryofwriting.org • The gallery is a free, searchable website with various types of composition by writers from all walks of life. • Writers may submit one composition along with information about themselves and why they chose to submit the piece. • Short stories, poetry, informational writing, essays, electronic presentations, blog posts, etc. may be submitted. Celebrate Writing!

4. Suggestions for Follow-Up Activities • Brainstorm reasons why people write. • List genres or type of writing done today. • Discuss where to get ideas for writing. • Conduct mini lessons on ways to begin writing pieces, on ways to organize, polish, and share writing, on the structure of specific genres, etc. • Revisit the writing done on the National Day on Writing and hold conferences to discuss how the writing can be further developed. • Share information about local or favorite authors. • Plan and implement a genre study. • Contribute to the ESE Performance Standards Project • The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is seeking samples of exemplary narrative, persuasive, and informational writing done by students. • The goal of this project is to publish student writing with commentary creating a public resource for students, teachers, and parents to use to improve student writing. • For further information, contact David Buchanan at (781) 338-6235 or dbuchanan@doe.mass.edu Celebrate Writing!