More than 40 educators participated in the Sun Belt Writing Project's 2008 summer institutes, a 350 percent increase over the previous summer.

"We hope that participation indicates interest,'' said Whyte, director of the Sun Belt Writing Project.

Since 1981, the Sun Belt Writing Project has worked to help K-16 educators improve student performance through writing by elevating their own knowledge of and comfort level in teaching the craft. The Sun Belt Writing Project, an Auburn University College of Education outreach program supported by the East Alabama Regional Inservice Center, the Department of Curriculum and Teaching and the Office of the Dean, has built a network of expert writing teachers from all disciplines and grade levels.

"The idea is the best teacher of another teacher is an expert,'' Whyte said. "The model is you go find those teachers that everybody wishes their kids had, from kindergarten to university, from physics and art and P.E. and English.''

The Sun Belt Writing Project will host its Fall Harvest Table Saturday, Nov. 1, from 8 a.m. to noon in Haley 2461. Teacher consultants John Pennisi and Richarde Talbot will host "An Invitation to Personal Writing'' from 8:30 to 10 a.m., while Maribeth Henderson will host "Poetry: A Sound between Speech and Music'' from 10 to 11:45. Pennisi, the Sun Belt Writing Project co-director, will host a fellowship for teacher consultants from 10 to 11:45. The Fall Harvest Table will conclude with a "Looking Ahead'' session from 11:45 to noon.

Initiatives like the Fall Harvest Table demonstrate the personal touch of the Sun Belt Writing Project, which was the first of six National Writing Project sites established at Alabama universities. While the late education reformer James Gray may have founded the precursor to the National Writing Project with an eye toward improving K-12 schools, Whyte said university faculty members have found plenty of value in the Sun Belt Writing Project's offerings.

"Hearing faculty members of that kind of stature say, 'I learned some things about my teaching of writing from these K-12 teachers,' was very exciting,'' Whyte said of the project's summer institutes. "We're small. At the table with larger entities, we can add something. The caliber of educators involved in this really can have a meaningful interaction with college faculty.''

In August 2007, the Sun Belt Writing Project began a two-year initiative to increase the capacity of its summer and school-year programs. From the fall of 2007 through the summer of 2008, the project offered six summer institutes, 19 youth and community writing programs, 29 continuity programs and 30 school-year inservice programs.  At the midpoint of its self-study, Whyte reported that:

·         More than 40 educators participated in the Sun Belt Writing Project's 2008 expanded summer institute.

·         The Sun Belt Writing Project's summer institute reached 680 students in 2008.

·         The total number of Sun Belt Writing Project-related programs increased from 53 during 2006-07 to 85 in 2007-08, an increase of 62 percent.

·         The total number of contact hours increased from 15,537 in 2006-07 to 36,748 in 2007-08, an increase of 236 percent.

·         The Sun Belt Writing Project's programs from the fall of 2007 through summer 2008 were conducted at a cost of $2.56 per contact hour with $1.14 supplied by federal reserve funds, 82 cents from federal funding allocated for fall 2007 through summer 2008 and 60 cents in matching local funds.

The Sun Belt Writing Project's leadership is working with the Office of the Dean, the East Alabama Regional Inservice Center and the Department of Curriculum and Teaching to indentify means of replacing the federal reserve funds that were used to expand the site's programs in 2007-08.

"Schools have always said that what we do is unique and important,'' Whyte said. "We can drop back to what we were doing before with about $46,000 a year. To continue at this level, we're talking more in the neighborhood of $85,000. We're really cost effective. It's less than $3 a contact hour total.

"EARIC partnered with us last year and has agreed to entertain a proposal again. With about a $5,000 contribution from each local district, we would make our match.''