Middlesboro Independent Schools is one out of 50 districts to be awarded a College, Career and Community Writers Program (C3WP) i3 Scale grant from the National Writing Project (NWP).

According to an official release, the program, spanning the next four years, is meant to engage over 120 teachers and thousands of students in the state of Kentucky.

The purpose of the project is to provide top tier development that helps teachers and students read critically, explore various points of view and help fight back against issues that affect these key points.

The funding for this work is from the 2016 U.S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation (i3) competition.

“C3WP is a good example of how we think about writing today in that it focuses on source-based writing — reading multiple and conflicting texts on civic topics, determining an argument in an area of emerging knowledge and writing an effective argument.,” stated NWP executive director, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl.

In a school year with C3WP, teachers will support students in doing everything from using informal writing to gather material and start to put together a position on a topic to direct instruction in determining the credibility of a source or developing a line of reasoning to practice with the elements of grammar and mechanics necessary to edit a piece of writing or proofread for errors.

Waylon Allen, superintendent of Middlesboro Independent Schools stated, “I am excited for the opportunity to have the Kentucky Writing Project work with our district. I believe our students will develop improved writing skills, while at the same time, our faculty will develop a greater understanding of teaching writing and how to more effectively assess writing across all content areas. This is a great time to be a Yellow Jacket.”