#blog4nwp – Invigorating and life-changing

Ann Hovey shares her letter to Congress with the Coöp as a#blog4nwp post.

I am writing to urge Congress to restore funding to the National Writing Project, a program that has been funded since 1991. Please reconsider and do what is right for the children in this country.

I have been teaching for ten years. In my second year of teaching, a time when many new teachers abandon their jobs, I had the fortunate opportunity to be a part of the Hudson Valley Writing Project’s Summer Institute. I was welcomed into a supportive network of collaborative teachers from across my state and the nation.

I experienced the writing process in an invigorating life-changing way and I now provide my students with this experience. They are fortunate to have me as their teacher because I know the process is just as important as the product.

Everything I know about writing was fostered through my work with the Hudson Valley Writing Project. I have become a teacher leader because I have had countless opportunities to provide outstanding professional development within my own district and outside my district over the past ten years.

Had it not been for my work as a Teacher Consultant for the HVWP, I would not be the teacher I am today; in fact, I am certain I would not have remained a teacher at all.