September writing workshop and retreat open to 25 WWU faculty members

All Western Washington University faculty members of any rank who teach officially designated writing courses or any course with a substantial writing component are invited to join colleagues in a two-and-a half day working session to gain practices for enhancing writing instruction and to refine their own instructional materials.

This year's working retreat will be held Sept. 8 to 10 (Wednesday to Friday) at WWU's Shannon Point Marine Center in Anacortes.

Based on very successful sessions the past seven years, the theme of the event is "Backwards by Design." The goal is to move backward from identifying discipline-based learning expectations, back to devising evaluation schemes for realizing those expectations, back to designing effective writing assignments, and finally back to developing classroom activities for supporting those assignments. Participants can also identify other special topics related to writing instruction that they would like to address. Sessions include mini-presentations, dialogue, and demonstrations, as well as time to work on individual course materials in the company of colleagues.

Past participants have found it useful to be off campus and to work across multiple days because it affords an opportunity to really immerse in the work. And this year's chosen site at Shannon Point is set in a lovely wooded area, right on the water and less than an hour away from Bellingham.

The workshop-retreat is all expenses paid including transportation, lodging in a shared room, meals and materials as long as participants commit to two overnight stays.

The Shannon Point facility has limited space and private rooms are not available onsite, but the rooms are very spacious and include bathrooms. If a private room is needed, the adjacent Ship Harbor Inn has available accomodations, though the participant would need to cover the costs for his or her own lodging.

First-time workshop participants will receive priority, but past participants are also welcome to apply. Multiple members from the same department or area are encouraged to attend. Space is limited to 25 faculty members. To pre-register, e-mail Megan Otis at megan.otis@wwu.edu, and for more details about the event, contact Carmen Werder at carmen.werder@wwu.edu.