Mercy participates in National Day on Writing

October 20, 10:14 AMBaltimore Private Schools ExaminerMeredith Bower

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Will words from her notebook appear in The National Gallery of Writing?

No matter if you "tweet," send email to friends and co-workers, keep a dairy, or draft memos at work, it's writing. October 20th celebrates all things written with a National Day on Writing.

The day, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), was designed to highlight the wide variety of writing being done in the 21st century. As part of the effort, the group debuted a virtual National Gallery of Writing. Locally, Mercy High School is participating in the project.

Everyone is writing
“Writing has traditionally been a tool of the elite, but technology has democratized writing, enabling millions of people to write every day, many times a day,” said Linda Waldych, chair of Mercy's English Department. She believes the project has historical significance and cites email, text messaging, and Twitter as just a few of the developments that have created an explosion of new and different forms of writing.

According to NCTE, by collecting a cross-section of everyday writing through the National Gallery of Writing, we will better understand what matters to writers today—and when writing really counts. The group believes understanding who writes, when, how, to whom, and for what purposes will lead to production of improved resources for writers, better strategies to nurture and celebrate writers, and improved policy to support writing.

Variety of samples
Any group– a church, club, school or town – may launch a local gallery on the NCTE site. While some galleries focus on collecting specific forms of writing, such as recipes or poems, Mercy’s gallery will include as many types of writing as contributors choose to submit.  These writings may take the form of journal entries, notes, letters, scrapbook pages, poetry, class notes or blog entries. English teacher Kitty Yanson emphasized Mercy's support of writing ranging from polished essays to shopping lists. She remarked, “The goal is not only to showcase pieces of creative writing, but to present all the ways in which writing is used to convey meaning."

Members of the Mercy High School community – students, teachers, administrators, and alumna – are encouraged to submit their writing which ultimately will reach thousands of readers. The National Gallery will continue to accept submissions until June 1, 2010 and will remain open to readers through June 30, 2010.