Focused on the critical role that writing plays in both teaching and learning, IWT brings together secondary and college teachers for innovative, intellectually stimulating, and practically useful workshops, conferences, and on-site consulting.
The establishment of IWT in 1982 was part of Bard College President Leon Botstein’s response to what he saw to be a lack of substance and depth in students’ writing. Like the Language and Thinking Program, the mandatory, three-week session for all incoming first-year Bard students—what the New York Times called a “boot camp for writers”—, IWT grew out President Botstein’s vision of the need to address a growing, widespread inability on the part of students to express their sophisticated ideas in writing.
The mission of L&T is to help students think more deeply and to read challenging texts more closely through writing. IWT continues to collaborate with the L&T program, whose practices are often reflected in workshops.
Since IWT’s founding, a diverse faculty representing the fields of composition, literature, philosophy, art, and science from diverse institutions across the country continue to develop and refine writing practices. These associates work with one another through ongoing conversations about teaching and writing, continuing to learn about what writing is and can be for their students and transmitting their knowledge and experience to teachers in IWT’s workshops.
