The Oregon Writing Project at the University of Oregon (OWP/UO) will provide an intensive, year-long professional development program for 15 teachers and 5 administrators from five isolated rural schools located in Grant County, Oregon. Grant County is 4,528 square miles of cattle country, arroyos, high prairies and forestland in Eastern Oregon. Several of these participating school districts serve less than 50 students.

Our project will host a two-day institute for participating teachers from five districts: John Day, Long Creek, Dayville, Monument and Prairie City. In addition to learning about new strategies and technologies for improving student writing, teachers will develop a vision for creating a technology-rich literacy program at their schools and identify individual professional development needs to make this vision a reality. The two-day institute will be followed by ongoing support from OWP/UO Tech TCs using a variety of communication technologies. In addition to email and phone, the Tech TCs will host a wiki for sharing instructional strategies and initiate a series of web-based workshops using web conferencing tools and software. The program will be capped with a follow-up session to celebrate accomplishments. This project builds on our site’s experience working with rural schools in a way that builds a professional learning community and fosters classroom instruction that prepares students for 21st century success.