Project-based Writing eCourse

“If it doesn’t exist outside of school, then it isn’t worthy enough to be taught within school.”

Project-Based Writing is an ecourse that focuses on this mantra and the methods that teachers can use to follow through with its promise. Writing is universal, and all subject areas can integrate the different genres in authentic ways to make their content more meaningful.

In this 6-week program, participants will be given examples of project-based writing units across the disciplines, and will be given the opportunity to develop their own unit, receive feedback, and share with others, walking away with multiple units that can be utilized in their classroom both Someday and Monday.

How Will This Project-Based Writing eCourse Help Educators?

Read PLP’s interview with Heather Wolpert-Gawron about this eCourse.

Graduate Credit Available

After the course begins, two graduate credits may be obtained through North Dakota State University for an additional fee of $125. Get complete details here.

Photo credit: Pencils on desk

Project-Based Writing lasts six weeks. Each week features:

• A 90-minute, live, interactive webinar covering that week’s topic.
• A Powerful Learning Practice facilitator to provide tech support and foster discussion and learning during the webinar
• Your participation in a virtual community will facilitate discussions, promote collaboration, and deepen understanding through practice
• Readings, tutorials, and practical examples that supplement the live discussion for the week
• An archived recording of the session

This eCourse lasts six weeks. 

• January 28 – March 8, 2013

Time and Day

Synchronous 1.5 hour Webinars – Thursday evenings at 8-9:30pm Eastern. On-going interaction throughout the six weeks in the virtual learning community.

Week I

What is Project-Based Writing and how does it relate to the skills that our students will need for their future? Additionally, how does PBW apply to the Common Core? In this first week, participants will be introduced to the syllabus and will begin exploring the need to blend writing genres across the content areas. Participants will be guided in finding their own authentic assessments that will help drive their learning throughout the ecourse.

Week II

Participants will explore the first in a series of Project-Based Writing units. The cohort will then learn how to frontload their own unit. They will learn more about how technology applies to the PBW of today and the key internet literacy skills to teach. Additionally, all participants will be given scaffolds in order to expect and assess writing in different genres. Week II will focus on Persuasive writing and Argumentation as well as the different modalities PBW can allow.

Week III

This week will focus on the future of Literary Analysis and its new relationship to argumentation. They will learn specific strategies to teach writing a thesis statement as well as teaching evidence vs. commentary. Participants will learn about another PBW unit and will continue working with instructors on the design and development of their own PBW unit. The cohort will go deeper into methods of utilizing technology like blogging and collaborative tools to use with students working through their projects.

Week IV

In true College and Career Readiness fashion, Week IV focuses on weaving writing genres together into a more authentic project. Instructors will discuss the use of TED.com as a means to incorporate Memoir and Advocacy into a project that gives students choice and classrooms a wide variety of subjects on which students are researching.

Week V

Project-Based Writing is not so much about being the teacher as modeling the learning. In Week V, instructors will guide the cohort into the construction of the Teach the Teacher unit, a student-driven model of Project-Based Writing. This week will focus on the rigor that students bring to a student-created classroom environment, and this fourth PBW unit will highlight go into detail about student-created rubrics, student-created assessments, and student-created lessons.

Week VI

This final week explores one last model PBW unit and also gives a forum for participants to share their created projects as well. While the cohort has been working individually on their units throughout the duration of the ecourse, they will now submit and receive feedback from one other during this final week. In the end, participants will submit their finalized project portfolios in order to share their scaffolds with the participants in the course.

The six-week Project-Based Writing eCourse is $199 for PLPeeps (alumni who have been through the year-long community experience) and available to the public for $249.

District pricing available. Contact us for details.

Heather Wolpert-Gawron is an award-winning middle school teacher and author of the popular education blog Tweenteacher. She has authored workbooks on teaching Internet Literacy for grades 3-8, and is currently working on a new set of literacy workbooks: Project Based Writing. Her book ‘Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers (2011), published by Eye on Education.

Heather also blogs for Edutopia (The George Lucas Educational Foundation) and moderates their middle school discussion group. She also blogs for the education channel at The Huffington Post. Heather is a member of the national Teacher Leaders Network, a Fellow of the National Writing Project, and is devoted to helping teachers regain control of their profession through elevating their practice and educating themselves on policy.

She is wife to Royce, whom she met in 2nd grade, after karate-chopping him at recess. Additionally, she is mom to her crazy-wonderful 4 year-old son, Benjamin, who will begin public school in the fall of 2011, and her newborn Samwise (yes, like the Hobbit) whom they call Sam. She lives with all her boys and their boxer/corgy mix, their laughter and chaos, in Los Angeles, CA.