SCWriP and all affiliated Projects are committed to the professional development model for teachers initiated by the Bay Area Writing Project at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974. Student writing can be improved by improving the teaching of writing. Programs designed to improve the teaching of writing must involve teachers from all levels of education and all subjects. The writing problem can best be solved through cooperatively planned university-school programs. Change can best be accomplished by those who work in the schools, not by transient consultants or by prepackaged systems.
Meaningful changes can occur only over time.
Staff development programs must be systematic and ongoing. What is known about the teaching of writing comes not only from research but from the classroom practice of those who teach writing. Teachers of writing must write. The Fellows of the Summer Institute join as colleagues with resident project staff and a number of distinguished visiting consultants to create a community of writers and readers. SCWriP was a wonderful, intense experience.