Campus & Community / Magazine Feature

Writing Program celebrates National Day on Writing

Writers of all kinds and skill levels can participate in the National Day on Writing Oct. 20.

DU’s Writing Program and the University Writing Center will host three events to coincide with the day, which was established by the National Council of Teachers of English.

“Writing will be an essential part of our students’ professional and civic lives, and the National Day on Writing gives us a chance to celebrate both the excitement and challenges of engaging with writing,” says Matt Hill, a lecturer in the Writing Program.

A morning kick-off event will celebrate the work of first-year students. Students chosen by their first-year seminar professors will read works for an audience in the Renaissance Room in the Mary Reed Building from 8:15–9:45 a.m.

“It’s essential they leave college as strong writers,” says Geoffrey Bateman, lecturer in the Writing Program. “It’s why our mission is to build a robust culture of writing on campus.”

The entire DU community is invited to participate in events from noon–2 p.m. outside the front entrance to Penrose Library. Visitors can partake in a variety of word games and a bumper sticker contest focused on Colorado’s proposed constitutional amendments. Later that evening, DU students, faculty and staff will be sharing their own writing at a reading in the Renaissance Room from 5­–6:30 p.m.

Leading up to the National Day on Writing, members of the Writing Program and the University Writing Center will sponsor a “PostSecret”-style collection centered on the theme of writing. A table will be set up between 11 a.m.–1 p.m. on the Driscoll Bridge Oct. 12–14 and 18–19 to collect campus writing secrets. The responses will be displayed in the University Writing Center beginning Oct. 20.

“Participating in the national celebration helps to highlight for our students the ways in which their activities as writers — in classes and outside of classes — are valued both on and off campus,” Hill says.

For more information, visit www.ncte.org/action/dayonwriting.

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