Emily Considine
Illinois Wesleyan University’s Writing Center celebrated the National day on Writing this past Monday by showing off the new center in Ames and also creating an autobiography wall. Students were invited to create their own one-sentence autobiography—be it funny, crazy, serious or strange—to post in the Davidson/Henning hallway.
“We just wanted an activity that involved students, that was the point behind the autobiography wall, and we wanted to highlight the Writing Center’s new space in Ames, which was the point behind the open house,” said Writing Coordinator for General Education Joel Haefner.
The National Day on Writing is an event sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) located in Champaign, Ill.
“The purpose is to call attention to all the writing we all do every day and the importance of teaching and learning about writing,” said Haefner.
The National Writing Project and The New York Times Learning Network encourage people to celebrate writing in all its forms—through photos, film and graphics, with pens, pencils and computers, in graphs, etchings and murals, on sidewalks, screens and paper. This year’s theme was writing in, about or for the community.
“This is the first year we have offered any activities associated with the National Day on Writing, so we weren’t really worried about tapping into that theme,” said Haefner.
According to the NCTE’s website, the National Day on Writing was created in light of the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives. NCTE established Oct. 20 as The National Day on Writing.
“We’ve already started talking about next year. Some of us think a poetry slam might be nice, but there is always a bumper crop of ideas for promoting writing,” said Haefner. “Anyone who has any ideas would be most welcome to share them with me.”