Program Formats & Possibilities

Program Formats

In-service Programs
One or more teacher-consultants introduce research-based teaching and learning strategies which they have used successfully in their own classroom practice. Workshop programs are held on site at your school or district, as part of teacher release time or after school. Number of participants and session length is designed to accommodate local needs, but sessions typically include strategy models and student examples, time to try new strategies, question and answer discussion, and time to plan for immediate classroom use.

Literacy Fair
Multiple presenters showcase a variety of classroom-based teaching practices across grade levels and content areas. Sessions accommodate up to twenty participants and typically last 90 minutes.

School-Based Partnership
MWP Teacher-Consultants visit regularly to support systemic change in literacy instruction. We facilitate leadership team meetings, provide inservice, and support grade or content area teams to create a self-sustaining program that meets local needs with local leadership. We can also mentor individual teachers and work in classrooms with teachers and students to support their use of new literacy strategies.

Facilitating Professional Learning Communities
Combines professional readings, discussion, and action planning to support grade or content area teams in implementing change.

Informing Instruction by Examining Student Work
MWP Teacher-Consultants facilitate protocols that help teachers share student work and help each other to evaluate classroom practice–a proven approach to supporting the use of new literacy strategies.

Program Possibilities

Literacy Across the Curriculum
Teachers explore strategies that help students to comprehend curriculum materials in different subjects areas.

  • Think-aloud modeling to help students see what good readers and writers do
  • Role-play and other action strategies to increase comprehension
  • Supporting multiple learning styles with graphic organizers, questioning strategies, and discussion formats for responding to text

Writing Across the Curriculum
Teachers explore the demands of writing in their discipline, and design meaningful writing tasks to help their students meet those demands.

  • Various approaches to the writing process, including writing revision
  • Persuasive writing and effective use of evidence
  • I-Search for inquiry-driven research

Assessment and Standards 
Programs connect diverse forms of assessment with government and industry mandates.

  • Measuring progress with portfolios
  • Turning state standards into student inquiry
  • Differentiating instruction

Literacy through Technology
The Maine Writing Project also offers programs on classroom integration of blogs, wikis, Web-based resource management,  podcasting, digital storytelling, online discussion, and other emerging technologies.

  • Digital storytelling, podcasting, and other multimedia composition
  • Blogs, wikis, and other approaches to writing and collaborative student work
  • Finding and evaluating Internet sites
  • Understanding and applying copyright and fair use in the digital age
  • Action planning for technology integration by administrators and/or teachers