San Antonio Writing Project Hosts Digital Writing Seminar

By Christi Fish
Associate Director of Media Relations

(Sept. 15, 2011) -- This Saturday, the San Antonio Writing Project (SAWP) will host “Digital Writing: Byte Write Into It,” the first seminar in its 2011-2012 professional development series. The seminar, which will provide educators ways to teach writing using technology, is scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, September 17 at the UTSA Downtown Campus in the Frio Street Building Auditorium (FS 1.406).

“We established the San Antonio Writing Project in 2006 at UTSA as a way to help local teachers improve their overall writing instruction,” said Roxanne Henkin, UTSA professor in the College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching and SAWP director. “Under the Writing Project model, teachers teach teachers. Then, the teachers who attend our seminars go back to their schools and share what they learned with their colleagues.”

Educator Chris Navarro will keynote the seminar. Navarro has worked in education since 1998 as a teacher and program coordinator in schools and with non-profit organizations. He is an active participant in the Central Texas Writing Project, has lobbied on behalf of the NWP and is an advocate of charter school reform. Currently, he serves as the program coordinator of a small business called Open Art that provides fine arts enrichment and education services and creative consulting to parents and students, public and private schools, and other types of organizations. He also independently publishes a comic book called "Chicano Superstar”.

The San Antonio Writing Project was established in 2006 by the UTSA College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching to improve the writing of K-12 students in the greater San Antonio region, particularly English Language Learners and children from impoverished areas of south Texas. It is one of more than 200 National Writing Project sites that aim to collectively improve writing instruction in K-12 classrooms across the nation.

The digital writing seminar is free for UTSA students, UTSA faculty and SAWP teacher consultants. The cost is $20 for non-SAWP attendees. Participants will receive three professional development credits and should park in an unmarked space in one of the following parking lots: the Durango Loop Lot, Lot D-1, Lot D-2, Lot D-3, Lot D-4, Lot D-5, the Cattleman’s Square Lot or the Monterey Building Lot.

For more information, visit www.SanAntonioWritingProject.org or contact UTSA Professor Roxanne Henkin at 210-458-5427.