Summer Institute
The Central Utah Writing Project Invitational Summer Institute (SI) brings together a group of passionate K-12 teachers across all content areas and grade levels. We welcome early career teachers, experienced teachers, elementary educators, as well as teachers across all subject areas. The strength of the SI comes from the teachers who participate. Together we will cultivate a dynamic environment to hone both our writing practice and our pedagogy. During the SI we will engage in community with each other to investigate and reflect on our instructional methods, prepare and deliver presentations, and work in writing groups toward personal and professional publication. Working from the belief that teachers of writing must also write themselves, participants will practice daily writing as well as investigate and share innovative ways to teach writing. This immersive process builds a community of writers and learners.
As a participant in the SI, you will gather more ideas and better strategies for teaching writing, share in collegial relationships with other teachers, earn credits or professional development points, and receive new books for your professional library. Teachers who participate in the SI become CUWP Fellows who take a leadership role in their schools and have opportunities to continue learning and leading with our community.
We know that the best teachers of teachers are other teachers, and that teachers who are writers themselves are the most effective writing teachers. Our aim is for teachers to learn together and come away from the Institute with a renewed excitement about and commitment to writing and the teaching of writing.
2025 SI Dates
Those accepted into the Summer Institute are expected to attend all the dates below in order to receive full PD points/university credit.
Pre-Institute Kick-Off:
Friday, March TBD, 2025, 5:00 – 8:30 pm
Running Start:
Saturday, April 26, 2025, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm
Summer Dates:
(8:30 am – 3:30 pm each day)
Monday, June 9 – Thursday, June 12
Tuesday, June 16 – Wednesday, June 18
Monday, June 23 – Thursday, June 26
How to Apply
Application Deadline: February 14, 2025
The application includes an online form (linked below), an uploaded personal statement, and an administrator pledge of support. Please be sure to complete your application by the deadline. The CUWP Leadership Team will review applications and reach out to prospective participants to schedule a group interview in February. Invited participants will be informed in mid to late February so they can plan for the three-week institute in June.
Personal Statement
Write an informal essay describing how you teach writing or use writing as a means of learning in your classroom or content area; as part of your essay, explain what questions teaching writing has raised for you. Maximum 600 words, double spaced. You will upload this response as part of the online application (see button below).
Administrator Pledge of Support
Please submit a letter from an administrator pledging support for you to prepare and present an in-service in your home school after the completion of the summer institute. You can use this admin letter template.
Option: You may upload the administrator letter in the application form (found on the button below) OR you may ask your admin to email it directly to cuwp@byu.edu by the application deadline.
Why Should I Participate?
- DEVELOP COMMUNITY WITH OTHER TEACHERS whose experiences align with – and differ – from each other’s. This includes teachers of all grades levels and subjects. We will learn and share with teachers whose teaching contexts perhaps differ from yours. We will write, share, laugh, cry, eat, and connect as humans with each other through the summer.
- WRITE DAILY – IN A VARIETY OF GENRES – AND ENGAGE IN A SMALL WRITING GROUP for attention, appreciation, and suggestions for the next draft. Each participant will produce a portfolio by the end of SI which includes at least one personal and at least one professional piece of writing.
- PARTICIPATE IN A SMALL-GROUP PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE CIRCLES to investigate questions we bring from our own teaching experiences. Each group will make a brief presentation to the rest of the participants toward the end of the SI. We hope to activate a mindset of ongoing professional inquiry.
- CURATE A COLLECTION OF TEACHING STRATEGIES to reach ALL of our students. Each participant will share their own learning as part of a lab lesson that they will prepare and deliver to theirs peers during the SI, which will lead to a collection of resources, strategies, and teaching materials participants can adapt to their own teaching contexts.
- EXPERIENCE WORKSHOPS from teachers and experts that center on what really works in our teaching of writing.
- EARN 6 GRADUATE CREDITS OR 101 RECERTIFICATION POINTS toward relicensure that reflect your renewed commitment to writing instruction. See course syllabus here.
Frequently Asked Questions
The annual Summer Institute meets four days a week for three weeks in the summer, usually the last three weeks of June. There are two pre-Institute events, one in April and one in May, to get us started. See the dates above.
The institute is currently held on Brigham Young University in the Joseph Fielding Smith Building (JFSB). Parking on campus for participants will be free.
Any K-college teacher in any subject area who is interested in – even passionate about – the teaching of writing. The SI is open to teachers in all content areas and grade levels, not just English/language arts teachers.
There is no cost to you for participating!
You can register to receive up to 6 hours of either Elementary Education of Secondary Education graduate credits (ELED or SCED 589R) from BYU. These are offered to you at a 90% discount from regualr graduate credits. At $47 / credit, the total for 6 credits for the summer would be $282. Consider asking your principal to help you cover this cost; many will!
All participants in the SI will be eligible to receive 6 USBE credits or 101 relicensure hours through the Midas System of the Utah State Board of Education.
Follow the link above. The application includes a brief personal statement and administrator pledge of support.
Participants are expected to attend every day of the SI. If you know you have a trip planned that overlaps or you know you will need to miss more than one or two days, consider applying the following summer!
Below is a sample schedule of our days together. During the SI, we will also participate in a walk-and-write event one morning, host CUWP fellows for a reunion day with a guest speaker, and, on the last day, we will invite administrators and colleagues to showcase what we’ve learned together.
8:30 am – light breakfast and writing time
9:00 am – presentation of the log from the day before
9:15 am – workshop or lab lesson presentation
10:15 am – break
10:30 am – lab lesson reflection discussion
11:00 am – sacred writing time
12:00 – lunch
12:45 pm – reading groups
1:45 pm – break
2:00 pm – writing groups
3:20 pm – participant spotlight and preview of next day