About the Gateway Writing Project

UMSL campus, 1978 and Jane Zeni, Founding Director of GWP

Founded in 1978, the Gateway Writing Project (GWP) is sponsored by the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and is the official St. Louis site of the National Writing Project (NWP). Connecting five state sites, GWP is also a member of the Missouri Writing Projects Network (MWPN). Through these institutional partnerships, GWP serves teachers and students in urban, suburban, and rural districts as a professional learning organization.

GWP is an organization of, by, and for teachers. We strive to impact student writing abilities by improving the teaching and learning of writing. We do this by providing professional learning experiences for classroom teachers, supporting teachers' own writing, providing youth writing programs, and promoting teacher leadership in the profession.  We believe all teachers are teachers of writing.

 Why Join the Network?

Build cross school connections, your classroom practice, your capacity as a leader in literacy, teacher autonomy, and your identity as a writer.  Experience camaraderie, empowerment, a space for teacher voice, affirmation, fun, motivation, shared purpose, accountability, inspiration, intellectual growth, collaborative learning, and a professional home.  Receive fresh ideas and strategies for immediate application, freebies, opportunities, a larger audience for student publication, and valuable professional learning from teachers teaching teachers.

Who is in the Network?

 Missouri Writing Project, Prairie Lands Writing Project, Ozarks Writing Project, & Greater Kansas City Writing Project

All MWPN sites base their programs on the following National Writing Project Assumptions:

• Writing is pivotal to learning, to academic achievement, and to job success.

• Writing instruction begins in kindergarten and continues through university.

• Universities and schools in collaboration provide powerful programs for teachers.

• Effective teachers make the best teachers of other teachers.

• Teachers are the key to reform in education.

• Professional development begins when teachers enter teaching and continues throughout their careers.

• Writing is fundamental to learning all subjects.

Missouri Writing Projects Network MWPN is comprised of five Sites.

We are firmly committed to the belief that teachers are the key to educational change and that real change in classroom practice happens over time.  

The National Writing Project believes that access to high-quality educational experiences is a basic right of all learners.

NWP works in partnership with institutions, organizations and communities to develop and sustain leadership for educational improvement. Throughout our work, we value and seek varied voices—our own as well as that of our students and their communities—and recognize that practice is strengthened when we incorporate multiple ways of knowing that are informed by culture and experience.

A Network of University-Based Sites

Co-directed by faculty from the local university and from K–12 schools, nearly 175+ local sites serve all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Sites work in partnership with area school districts to offer high-quality professional development programs for educators. NWP continues to add new sites each year, with the goal of placing a writing project site within reach of every teacher in America. The network now includes two associated international sites.

A Successful Model Customized for Local Needs

NWP sites share a national program model, adhering to a set of shared principles and practices for teachers’ professional development, and offering programs that are common across the network. In addition to developing a leadership cadre of local teachers (called “teacher-consultants”) through Institutes, NWP sites design and deliver customized in-service programs for local schools, districts, and higher education institutions, and they provide a wide array of continuing education and research opportunities for teachers at all levels.

National research studies have confirmed significant gains in writing performance among students of teachers who have participated in NWP programs.