WritingFix: About WritingFix...History of the Website

WritingFix's Beginnings

In 2001, Corbett Harrison became the Northern Nevada Writing Project's first Technology Liaison, a position created by the National Writing Project to incorporate more technology into classrooms where writing is being taught.

"I don't know where the idea [for WritingFix] came from," laughs Corbett now. "Probably just a by-product of my insomnia. I think I always wanted to be called webmaster by someone, so I invested some time and grant money into this website idea I had. I thought the Internet needed a place where good choice-based writing prompts might live."

Corbett created the first two dozen interactive writing prompts housed at WritingFix. Most were based on high-quality writing lessons he observed in fellow teacher's classrooms. In 2002, he offered the first of over a dozen inservice classes for Nevada teachers. Participants learned how to navigate the newly launched WritingFix site, and how to design instruction around the interactive prompts. As part of each inservice class, participants were required to propose an idea for a new interactive prompt. Many of these proposals became new online prompts. Between 2002 and 2004, the site grew from two dozen on-line prompts to 130 on-line prompts.

In those first three years, WritingFix focused on building prompts that fit three big categories: Right-Brained Prompts, Left-Brained Prompts, and Poetic Prompts. Adds Corbett, "My favorite three prompts from those early years are still The Serendipitous Plot Generator, The Emotional Recipe Write, and The Oxymoron Maker. Those always got the older students writing!"

Primary elementary teachers requested prompts specifically geared for K-3rd grade students, so in 2004, WritingFix launched its WritingFix for Kids Prompt Collection. Since its creation, this single page remains one of the top-three most used pages at the WritingFix website.

In 2005 and 2006, we focused new growth on two big topics that Northern Nevada teachers were asking for: 1) Writing Traits and 2) Prompts inspired by picture books. Dena Harrison--Corbett's wife, middle school teacher, and 6-Trait Trainer in Northern Nevada--was instrumental in gathering new ideas for trait-based prompts from the teachers attending her semi-annual inservice courses; from these efforts, the 6-Trait Page was launched. A $25,000 grant received with the help of the Washoe Education Foundation put our Picture Book Lessons Page on the fast-track to completion. Both these pages remain highly popular at the website.

In 2007, a second $25,000 grant (Thank-you again, Washoe Education Foundation!) launched a new collection of prompts at WritingFix: the Chapter Book Lessons Page. In February of 2008, the page will be completed with over 50 new prompts inspired by excerpts from great fiction in young adult literature.

WritingFix's Reach and Growth:

The graph above shows WritingFix's increased use since 2003. WritingFix has doubled or tripled its number of users every year since its inception.

In 2003, we recorded 19,423 hits between September and December. We started collecting the number of hits late in the year.

In 2004, we achieved 532,877 hits during our first full-year of statistic gathering.

In 2005, we surpassed one million hits for the first time: 1.5 million hits.

For 2006, we doubled that: 2.8 million hits.

And in 2007, we soared past 4.4 million hits.

For 2008, we will be switching to a different statistic-gathering website service, because the SiteTracker site that we have paid to use since 2003 has become an incompetent and poorly run Internet business. United On-line, who owns the SiteTracker site, needs to be ashamed of the disturbingly poor services that are being given to their clients who pay for services. To read a more detailed explanation of why you should NEVER subscribe to Site-Tracker or to any of United On-line's services, please click here.

WritingFix's Future Development

With new grant monies, we will continue to grow and provide new resources to teachers from around the globe. These resources will be provided freely, and we are constantly going back to make older prompts and lessons even better.

For 2008, we have the following new projects being created at WritingFix. Watch them grow!

Classics of Literature Prompts - riding on the success of our Picture Book Prompt Page and Chapter Book Prompt Page, this new prompt page will eventually feature fifty or more lesson ideas based on excerpts from the classics of literature.
Classics of Poetry Prompts - using the classics of poetry as inspiration, this new collection of prompts will feature lessons and quick-writes inspired by poetry that can be found in the public domain.
I-Pod/Music Prompts - using contemporary lyrics as an inspiration, this new collection of prompts is being created for the NNWP's I-Pods in the Writing Class In-service that will happen in Spring of 2008.
Comparison/Contrast Resources - in conjunction with the NNWP's newest print resource, The Comparison/Contrast Guide, this page at WritingFix will showcase some of the work and resources by writing teachers involved in this project.
Constructed Response Resources - to assist Nevada teachers with constructed response prompts on our new criterion-reference tests, this page will feature new tools and ideas to help teachers use constructed response as a thinking tool with their students.
Art & Writing Lessons - this page will feature our first set of lessons designed specifically for K-4th grade teachers, each lesson combining art skills with writing skills.