Shepherd University National Writing Project Co-Director Brian Santana, right, chats with Department of English and Modern Languages Chair Betty Ellzey in Reynolds Hall after a National Writing Project event in December. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Two years ago, faculty members in Shepherd University’s Department of English, History and Modern Languages began working toward creating a local branch of the nonprofit National Writing Project (NWP).

For Assistant Professor of English Brian Santana, being a co-director of the project seemed like an obvious choice to him, as he had been noticing the need for an organization that provided educational support, after he saw a trend with students from local schools coming to Shepherd University with underdeveloped writing and communication skills.

“The National Writing Project is a nationwide network that basically connects local writing instructors with K-12 educators. The idea is that, a lot of times, what’s happening in the K-12 schools and what’s happening in the universities are being operated in different spheres. But we’re all really concerned with improving writing and communication,” Santana said. “It’s really about bringing together the kind of expertise that we have with our writing instructors at the university, and encouraging them to collaborate with K-12 educators, to find ways — within the guardrails they have set up for their system — to make the teaching of writing innovative and rewarding for their students. Hopefully, it will improve those outcomes that they have.

“We offer that kind of outside perspective to them and find ways to support them. They help us see in advance, too, what are those things that students are navigating,” Santana said. “When we go into the first year writing classroom, because we pull a lot of students regionally, we have a sense of what kinds of things are being navigated in the schools. We think it helps both of us.”

Santana noted that this kind of information sharing would have been beneficial to have had established long before now, especially when dealing with students effected by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the educational changes it caused. Currently, Shepherd University’s National Writing Project is the third in the state, following the establishment of ones at West Virginia University and Marshall University.

“It’s a lengthy process you have to go through, to get recognized as a site. We worked for that for about a year-and-a-half and were just recognized in the past year, as a site,” Santana said, noting there are a total of 175 sites in the United States. “We were recipients of a $647,000 congressional earmark from senators Capito and Manchin. They invested in that, to fund our site completely for two-and-a-half years.”

Later this month, on Feb. 24, some of that funding will be used to support the annual Literacy Leaders Conference at Shepherd University, according to Santana. The conference will help promote the goal of the SU NWP, providing four grade level-specific workshops for those teaching pre-kindergarten/kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school classrooms.

“If you’re a K-12 educator in Berkeley County or Jefferson County, we would love to have you involved,” Santana said.

Having this branch of the NWP in the Eastern Panhandle is a “big deal,” even for those not deeply involved with the project, as is the case with Department of English and Modern Languages Chair Betty Ellzey.

“The National Writing Project is a big deal! We’re so far away from the the rest of West Virginia, that we needed our own branch established here,” Ellzey said. “There should be a collaboration between the university and K-12 teachers. After all, their students come to us, and then we graduate a number of the teachers that go into those schools. It makes logical sense.”

Professor of English Heidi Hanrahan encouraged educators to begin following updates with the SU NWP, as its calendar will be full of events for teachers and students, beginning this spring.

To participate in the Literacy Leaders Conference or learn more about the SU NWP, visit https://www.shepherd.edu/nwp.