The Capital City Writing Institute (CCWI) is a four-day summer invitational institute for developmental writing faculty across the state of Michigan (and beyond). It was created in response to a desire among our faculty to have sustained conversations about teaching writing and to share teaching strategies that support the specific needs of developmental writers. Writing faculty in the Department of Language Skills at Lansing Community College developed the institute in 2007 and have run it for our own faculty twice previously, each time to glowing reviews from an outside evaluator. Now we would like to extend an opportunity to participate to faculty outside of our institution.

Teachers teaching teachers

The Institute is loosely based on the National Writing Project Summer Institute model, which was established thirty years ago and continues to serve faculty through a “teachers teaching teachers” philosophy. As such, it requires that each participant present/facilitate a session on a specific topic, and it includes “writing group” time as well—time for faculty to work on and share their own specific writing projects.

Our institute differs from a traditional conference in two ways. First, it brings together people who teach developmental writing at the two-year college. Second, it strictly limits the number of participants to provide adequate time for in-depth teaching demonstrations, small-group conversations, individual work time, participant-initiated special interest groups, and impromptu social gatherings.

Please join us in Lansing from August 10-13, 2010, for four days of teaching demonstrations, discussions, writing group meetings and fun with other developmental writing colleagues. We hope that this will be the first of many successful institutes for faculty engaged in this challenging and rewarding work.