West Tennessee Writing Project

01/20/2026

On January 8th, Teachers of the West TN Writing Project and friends wrapped up another round of judging the annual Scholastic Writing Awards entries. One teacher said, "I learn from these young writers and take away new ideas for lessons for my Middle School students." If you would like to learn about being a judge next year, contact David Carithers at [email protected].

10/16/2024

Registration is ready for the 2024 Young Writers Conference at UTM! Participants can register online. Individuals should register at www.utm.edu/ywc, while groups should register at www.utm.edu/ywcgroups. The conference fee is $10 for students and free for teachers, which includes all workshops, readings and lunch. Read on for more info. We hope to see you there!

The University of Tennessee at Martin will host the 2024 Young Writers Conference from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, at the Boling University Center.

The conference is designed primarily for students in grades 9 through 12 and offers a series of writing workshops taught by UT Martin faculty and visiting writers.

Students can attends hands-on workshops in writing poetry, fiction and nonfiction as well as songwriting and literary analysis.
This year’s guest writer is Kelly Kazek (pronounced “KAY-zick”), an award-winning journalist and humor columnist. She writes stories about odd roadside attractions and quirky history for AL.com, Alabama’s largest media presence.

Kazek has authored 25 books, including “The Southern Thesaurus,” and has won more than 150 state and national press awards, including two Alabama Associated Press Sweepstakes Awards for best story of the year and national honors for Best Humorous Commentary and Feature Writer of the Year.

Workshops will be held from 9 to 10:15 a.m. and from 12:45 to 2 p.m. Kazek will speak from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m., and lunch will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Skyhawk Dining Hall. An open mic featuring student reading will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. in Room 111 of the Boling University Center.

Date: Thursday, November 7, 2024 Time: 8:30 a.m.Check-in 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Conference Location: Boling University Center, Watkins Auditorium Cost: $10 per student Lunch vouchers will be provided to students.

09/11/2024

Save the Date! Thursday, Nov. 7: Young Writers Conference at UT Martin. We will have registration available soon. Sessions are geared toward high school and advanced middle school students.

This year’s keynote speaker is Kelly Kazek, an award-winning journalist and humor columnist. The author of 19 books, she writes stories about odd roadside attractions and quirky history for AL.com, Alabama’s largest media presence. She is the author of 19 books.

For a bit more information on Kelly, here is her website: https://kellykazek.com/about/

04/26/2024

Registration for the 2024 Summer Institute is now available! You can scan the QR code or use this link: www.utm.edu/summerinstitute2024

Only 12 seats are available, so sign up early if you would like a spot. If you have any questions, email WTWP Director David Carithers at [email protected]. You can also direct message me on FB if you prefer.

04/18/2024

SAVE the DATES!

The West Tennessee Writing Project Summer “Mini” Institute
July 8 –11, Monday – Thursday, 9:00 – 3:00
On the Campus of the University of Tennessee at Martin

Twenty Hours of Contact Time Available for Professional Development Purposes.
Certificates will be awarded to reflect the hours of participation.

Registration will be available soon!

What happens at the summer institute? In the mornings, participants share demonstrations of effective teaching practices involving writing. The afternoons are spent in workshopping and sharing on-going drafts of writing. The focus is on excellent teaching practices and ideas on how to use writing to facilitate instruction in all content areas.

Who may participate? Any teacher in any K-12 subject area.

What are the expectations? Participants will share a writing activity they use in their classes to facilitate student learning and will bring drafts of their own writing to afternoon workshops.

How much does it cost? There is no cost to participants.

The three tenets of WTWP: 1) students will become better writers in all subjects if writing instruction improves; 2) writing instruction will improve when teachers practice the art of writing on a regular basis; and 3) the best teacher of a teacher is another excellent teacher.

Questions? Contact David Carithers, WTWP Site Director: [email protected]

Here is what a few former participants had to say:

“I look forward to implementing so many of the strategies and styles into my writing curriculum, not just for my twenty plus students, but school wide.” –Marion Fryer, Oak Elementary

“Being a part of this project has really made a difference in me, not only as a writer and an individual but also as a teacher.”
–Amy Duncan, Hillcrest Elementary

About the West Tennessee Writing Project (WTWP) and the National Writing Project (NWP)

WTWP is an affiliate site of the National Writing Project (NWP), which has sites in most of the 50 states, and they are almost always situated within a university. There are around 200 NWP sites in the US and US territories. The West Tennessee Writing Project is housed in the Department of English & Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

NWP started in 1974 when the first summer institute in California brought together a group of teachers who wanted to help their students become better writers in all subjects. WTWP was formed in 1992 at the University of Tennessee at Martin under the direction of Dr. Margrethe Ahlschwede. Since then, more than 300 teachers have participated in the Summer Institutes. Dr. David Carithers became WTWP director in 2007.

09/08/2023

Friday, November 3: SAVE the DATE for the Young Writers Conference at the University of Tennessee at Martin! The student registration fee has been lowered to $10 this year, and teachers still attend for free. Lunch is included. The program is designed for high school students and advanced middle schoolers. More details to follow. Send inquiries to David Carithers at [email protected].

11/09/2022

In addition to headlining the Young Writers Conference next Friday, guest author TJ Martinson will also deliver a talk the day before at 4:00. Please join us! This event is free and open to the public.

11/08/2022

The Young Writers Conference is approaching fast but there is still plenty of time to register. Please see the link for more info.

11/02/2022

Registration is now open for the 2022 Young Writers Conference at UTM, to be held Friday, Nov. 18. Just click on the link below. This event is open to any high school students and advanced middle schoolers (we suggest you pick your more mature 8th-graders). Home-schooled students are welcome, too. Please contact me with any questions: [email protected].

09/23/2022

Hello friends,

The UT Martin Young Writers Conference is back this year and it will be live and in person on Friday, November 18. Please see the flyer below and look for registration information coming soon.

Let me know if you have any questions.

05/25/2022

Anybody feeling the need for healing and restoration right now? Would you like to attend a writing and teaching webinar with Georgia Heard?

WTWP is offering a series of free webinars this summer through the WRITE Center called “Writing for Restorative Healing: Strategies and Activities to (Re) Energize Educators and Students.” Each webinar is 1.5 hours and begins at 12:00 noon Central Time. All dates are in July. Check out the presenters and dates here:

https://www.writecenter.org/webinars.html

Registration is free to WTWP TC's and their friends. Just contact me for the link to registration:
PM me in FB Messenger or
email me at [email protected]

Certificates of participation will be provided. Registration is for all four webinars but you are not required to attend all. Your certificate will include the number of hours you attended.
Let me know if you have any questions! I'll be attending some of these, so I hope to see you there.

Access Webinar Replays and Exclusive Resources!

01/31/2022

In case you have not heard, the founding director of the West TN Writing Project, Dr. Margrethe Ahlschwede, passed away on January 22. Below is a link to her obituary and here is a summary of her work at UT Martin, written by Dr. Lynn Alexander, Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts:

Margrethe, and her husband, Bill, joined the UT Martin English faculty in 1992 after receiving her PhD from the University of Nebraska. While at UT Martin she founded the West Tennessee Writing Project (WTWP), a part of the National Writing Project. Through WTWP, Margrethe worked extensively with area high schools teachers to improve the ways writing is taught.

As an outgrowth of WTWP, she also began Voice Lessons: A Faculty Writing Project for UT Martin faculty interested in improving both their students’ skills and their own. The Interdisciplinary Student Writing Conference was started by faculty involved in Voice Lessons. She was named a Hardy Graham Distinguished Professor in 1999.

Margrethe retired from UT Martin in 2007 and she and Bill returned to Lincoln. You can find her obituary at

Send flowers Share a memory Print obituary Share https://www.roperandsons.com/obit/margrethe-louise-plum-ahlschwede/ Margrethe Louise Plum Ahlschwede, 81, of Lincoln passed away January 22, 2022. Born January 3, 1941, in Copenhagen, Denmark to Mogens and Dorothea (Sulzbach) Plum. Margrethe and her f...