"Writing is thinking, not thought written down," claimed Pulitzer Prize winner Don Murray. I learned this during the intensive experience of becoming a Teacher-Consultant of the
Maine Writing Project. I have since, experienced profound joy passing this transformative insight on to future teachers at UMaine and to Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy,
and Penobscot students, participating in the Wabanaki Writers Project (WWP).
In 2008 a Rural Sites Network competitive grant from NWP gave birth to efforts of WWP Teacher-Consultant Coordinators to nurture new voices among youth of First Peoples.
Few Native American students find their writing voice in the schoolhouse. Thanks to NWP, we learned that in settings close to Nature, as members of a cultural community of writers,
voices of Wabanaki students boom. WWP is still a go, and under its own steam! WWP's most recent venture was last January at Flagstaff Lake. It involved students and
some parents in a 1.7 mile snowshoe trek in and out and two days of writing and exploring.
Teachers who have not learned to bring to themselves and their teaching the joy of writing need the thousand points of light NWP provides.