Every summer since 1980 HWP has run an Invitational Summer Writing Institute (SI) for teachers K-16. This intensive, four-week workshop, offered for University of Hawai`i and DOE Professional development credit, follows the model developed by the National Writing Project and features demonstration lessons by participants and staff, collaborative group learning, and peer response writing groups. Teachers write, respond to one another's writing, and examine principles and strategies of effective writing and informed instruction. Since the establishment of the Hawai`i Writing Project, some five hundred teachers from Hawai`i's public and private schools, kindergarten through college, have become fellows of the four-week institute. While more than half of those have been teachers of English/Language Arts, others have been specialists in Art, Chemistry, Dance, Drama, French, Hawaiian Studies, History, Mathematics, Music, and Special Education. The institute earns both University of Hawai`i and DOE Professional Development credit. Several school year follow-up sessions guide teachers as they prepare a learning results portfolio for submission for Professional Development credit. Check out our Selected Summer Institute Works.

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An annual Literature Institute runs for two weeks each summer. Intended for elementary and intermediate school teachers as well as high school and college faculty, the institute earns both University of Hawai`i and DOE Professional Development credit. As with the Writing Institute, several school year follow-up sessions guide teachers as they prepare a learning results portfolio for submission for Professional Development credit.

Only a handful of sites in the National Writing Project network have anything resembling HWP’s Literature Institute. Inaugurated in 1993, the this institute has become HWP’s most popular program. Its main goal is to close the gap between new practices in teaching writing and old ones in teaching literature. Using many of the principles that underlie the Summer Writing Institute, the Literature Institute emphasizes the reading-writing connection from the other side of the equation, taking seriously Peter Elbow’s observation that readers also draft and re-draft and the provocative pronouncement by Sheridan Blau (Director of the South Coast Writing Project) that reading is more like writing than writing. Responding intelligently to literary texts requires much more than simply processing information.

“Poetry? Oh no!” Even experienced Writing Project teachers may quail before the challenge of teaching literature. How can we empower our students if we ourselves have stopped reading for pleasure? Just as teachers of writing need to think of themselves as writers, teachers of literature should enjoy reading and sharing insights with others. Check out our Literature Institute Selected Works

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HWP's annual Technology Institute is intended as a follow-up experience for teachers who have already participated in an intensive HWP institute. Meeting daily for one week in a computer lab, teachers learn ways of using computers to help students read and write better. Each teacher adapts the technology to an individualized project, such as creating a class web page for publishing student writing, powerpoint presentations, a class publication, or even a classroom blog. During the following Fall semester, the DOE participants prepare an electronic learning results portfolio in order to earn the Professional Development credit. Check out our Technology Institute Selected Projects.

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The annual Summer Writing-across-the Curriculum Institute (WAC) for community college faculty began in 1987 as an attempt to extend the reach of the invitational institute. It follows the same basic NWP model. Institutes have been held at Windward Community College , Leeward Community College , Maui Community College , Hawai`i Community College and Chaminade University , as well as at Kapi'olani Community College, which has been its primary sponsor from the outset. Beginning in 2001 the basic WAC Institute was shortened to two weeks and a second one week follow-up institute was added to focus on classroom assessment issues. Although called a community college institute, over the years it has included participants from all of the 4-year campuses in the state and most of the private colleges as well. Year after year one of the most significant outcomes for participants is a new appreciation for the teaching done by their colleagues in other disciplines. Check out our Selected WAC Institute Works

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Celebrate Teen Reading is an increasingly popular leisure-reading program giving  college, high school, middle school, and sixth graders the opportunity to read and discuss literature in company with authors and seasoned readers. Begun in 1997, HWP's statewide Celebrate Teen Reading Program invites HWP teachers and college service-learning students, in cooperation with librarians and other classroom teachers, to foster literature circles or book-clubs. Teens (and teacher-circles) discuss their choice of novels, stories and poetry from an annual list that gives special attention to literature from Hawai`i and the Pacific. The project culminates in a big Literature Festival on the last Saturday of April at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa.  Neighbor island festivals have also been held on Maui , Kaua`i, and the Big Island , rotating each year.

Celebrating Reading Links and Current Information

From time to time HWP enters into partnership with certain schools or clusters of schools for academic year programs. Usually these are made possible by outside funding. For example, in 1996 HWP received a Goals 2000 grant that allowed it to conduct a year long program of professional development with three different consortia of schools, two on O`ahu and one on the Big Island. In 2002, HWP helped the Campbell Complex (that is, the high school plus its feeder schools) to obtain and implement a complex-wide inservice program called Project Ewa. Currently HWP is the service provider for the Kalaheo Complex Schools in implementing a No Child Left Behind grant. Likely to be extended into a third year, the project will by its conclusion have held three summer institutes and three years of school-year workshops involving teachers and administrators from all seven of the complex's schools. The workshops are coordinated by a Hawai`i Writing Project Teacher Consultant working full-time for the project, half of whose salary is paid for by the grant and half by the Windward District Office of the DOE. The University of Hawai`i's College of Education is also an important partner in the project.

Past Projects

Writing: The World of Work (WWOW) was a 4-week summer institute begun in 1997 in cooperation with the Hawai`i State Department Of Education. Interdisciplinary teams of high school teachers used the writing project model as well as worksite visits to help them find ways to integrate writing and workplace realities into the curriculum. Funding was frozen after the 2000 institute. The Institute was also offered in American Samoa in 2000.

HWP is actively involved in The Literacy Hui , an association of agencies and organizations statewide that have an interest in literacy issues. In 1994 and 1997 the Hui sponsored statewide conferences, The New Literacy and The New Literacy II . Each conference attracted some 500 teachers. The Hui also held an educational meeting in 1997 with legislators and DOE officials to promote authentic assessment (writing done for real audiences in real situations) as a complement to standardized tests. In 1999 Hui members met with Governor Cayetano to discuss a range of literacy issues.

HWP has also conducted summer institutes designed especially for principals and administrators, teacher research, learning communities for school-wide reform, Goals 2000 consortia, Mililani PTO, Maui Success Compact teachers, HWP alums, teachers in American Samoa, and, through private funding, teachers in Shantou, China.

HWP publishes a newsletter twice yearly. It goes to over 1050 teachers statewide who have participated in HWP summer institutes.

For more information email us or contact the HWP office at (808) 734-9432. You can also write us at:

• Kapi` olani Community College Arts and Sciences Division
• 4303 Diamondhead Road, Kalia 101
• Hawaii Writing Project C/O Shel Hershinow
• Honolulu, HI 96822
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