Dear Senator Jeanne Shaheen,

I would like to welcome all new members and returning members to this year’s 112^th Congress, and wish you the best in your efforts to represent the people in your district. As a constituent living in your district, I am writing to inform you of my ongoing support and validation of the National Writing Project. I am one of the lucky teachers who participated in this important professional development. When I say that it is the single most valuable teacher education opportunity I have had, I am not overstating its effect on me, and I am echoing the words of my colleagues who have attended this wonderful program.

As a former teacher of English in high school and middle school and now a reading specialist in an elementary school, I wish to honor the contribution that the National Writing Project has made to my teaching in the past and continues to make in the present. Writing is one of the most important skills, next to reading, and I strongly believe that the two are reciprocal processes. When we neglect to teach our children how to write, we are short-changing them for their future. Writing is thinking and having to formulate thoughts on paper goes a long way to developing an educated citizenry.

The Writing Project offered me tremendous guidance in my instruction. The collaborative discussion regarding education in general and writing in particular stay with me today. I continue to draw from the writing lessons my colleagues shared. The Writing Project not only improved my teaching of writing to the hundreds of students I have taught in the past, it was also life-changing for my son who, today at 22, would like to become a writer.

The fall after attending the Writing Project, I had been bitten with the desire to continue my writing, a talent I had been neglecting and one that would help inform my teaching of writing a great deal, so I asked my husband and son if they would be willing to start a family writing night. On Tuesdays, we would come home from school or our jobs and work on a piece of writing, which we would bring to the dinner table to discuss. My son credits that activity in his life when he was a senior in high school, as the single most important reason he has become a writer and would like to pursue writing as a career. (To brag, my son won the Capstone Award for his paper to defend his senior thesis project at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, graduating in 2010.) 

When my colleague, Meg Peterson suggested we use personal reasons for asking our representatives to support the Writing Project, I was proud to share my family story. Even now, when I tell people about our family writing night, they are impressed. It is hard to document the effect of my teaching of writing on all of my students’ lives, but I occasionally run into them and they tell me how important the writing was to them.

In conclusion, I am requesting that you please support the National Writing Project as a tremendous professional development opportunity for New Hampshire teachers and a tremendous learning opportunity for the many students whose lives these teachers will touch. Good luck in your term  in the 112^th Congress.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Donna Montenegro

Reading Specialist

Disnard Elementary School

Claremont, New Hampshire 03743