On Tuesday, Eastern Michigan University will celebrate the National Day on Writing with an entire day of writing events at the Student Center.

“The National Day on Writing was created by the National Council of Teachers of English—which is this sort of big national organization for English and writing teachers grades kindergarten through college—to celebrate the diversity of writing that people do every day,” said professor Linda Adler-Kassner, director of First-Year Writing and one of the program’s coordinators.

“When we heard that NCTE was going to have this National Day on Writing we decided we would have a campus-wide celebration to do the very same thing: celebrate all the different kinds of writing that people do every day at Eastern Michigan University,” Adler-Kassner said.

The National Day on Writing kicks off at 9 a.m. in the Student Center Ballroom and will feature a variety of writing-themed events, discussions and free food. The event will reflect the multitude of styles and types of writing students participate in, from academic essays and projects to creative writing and even text messages, blogs and e-mails.

Some of the programs include writing marathons, six-word memoirs, erasure poems and a video project called “Roving Reporters,” which will provide students with a Flip camera for 20 minutes to walk around campus and interview people about their writing practices.

The event is being presented with help from a number of sponsors, some of which will be hosting their own programs. The non-profit organization 826 Michigan will be sponsoring an event where students can write the final chapter of books written by elementary school children from Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. The Office of International Studies will be hosting a translation station where they will help translate words, phrases and names into different languages.

Additionally, the University Writing Center will be hosting workshops throughout the day and two discussions later in the evening on college-level writing for high school students and their parents.

Other sponsors include Campus Life, the EMU Bookstore and the Department of English Language and Literature, among others.
The National Council of Teachers of English will be hosting a live podcast and streaming video of the event on their Web site as well as an online gallery of student writing. Computers will be available in the Student Center for students to upload their work onto the national gallery. Links to both of these sites can be found at www.emich.edu/ndow.

“It’s going to be a really fun event, a super fun day, and it’s a great way to sort of find out about kinds of writing that you might not have experienced or a really fun way to try out new ways of thinking about writing that you might not have experienced,” Adler-Kassner said.

“There’s so many great students, so many great activities and so many terrific ideas at Eastern, and it’s a great opportunity for us to sort of share those altogether and sort of connect with lots of other people who share those things too, and really find out about the nifty work that others do with writing.”

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