OWP Folks,

I think Janis forwarded the email below to everyone, but I just wanted
to encourage you to write to your Representatives by next Wednesday to
urge them to sign the Dear Colleague Letter.

Two of us from OWP will be visiting with our Congressmen March 29 in
D.C. as part of the National Writing Project spring meeting.  They need
to know that a lot of voters care about continued funding of the Writing
Projects.  The email below from NWP gives websites about the letter and
about addresses for Congress.

It's a good opportunity for us teachers who emphasize audience to our
students to write to a real audience ourselves.

Terry Phelps
OWP Board



Phones in the House of Representatives must be ringing non-stop from all
of your calls! We are buzzing here every time we hear from one of you.
Your hard work has resulted in 23 signatures so far on the NWP Dear
Colleague letter, and we know many more are close to signing. Our
deadline has been extended to WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, which gives us a few
more days to get a lot more signatures!

If your representative is not on the list below, please call the DC
office and ask to speak to the education aide. If the aide has not seen
the letter, please email or fax it to him or her. The letter can be
found on the NWP website:
http://www.writingproject.org/Resources/dc.csp.

Phone numbers for the DC offices of all representatives can be found
here: http://www.house.gov/

Remember: Only representatives or their aides should sign the Dear
Colleague letter by contacting Lisette Partelow or Adrienne Dunbar at
202-226-2068, [log in to unmask], or
[log in to unmask]

Some tips: Your representatives may be encouraged to sign by knowing
about others in the state who have already signed the letter. If one of
your representatives is on the Appropriations subcommittee, she or he
may not sign the letter, but please ask if the member can support the
writing project in other ways throughout the coming year.

Please know that your voices are being heard in DC. Your stories are
compelling and since you are constituents, your legislators want to hear
from you!

Stay tuned for updates. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to
contact Genevieve Bennett at 510-643-2072 or
[log in to unmask]  Thank you for your great work.

House Dear Colleague Letter Co-signers
As of March 7, 2007

1.  Lois Capps (D-CA)
2.  Russ Carnahan (D-MO)
3.  Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO)
4.  Charles W. Dent (R-PA)
5.  John D. Dingell (D-MI)
6.  Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
7.  Bart Gordon  (D-TN)
8.  Rush Holt (D-NJ)
9.  Ron Lewis (R-KY)
10. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
11. Michael Michaud (D-ME)
12. James L. Oberstar (D-MN)
13. Collin Peterson (D-MN)
14. Jim Ramstad (R-MN)
15. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
16. Vic Snyder (D-AR)
17. John Spratt (D-SC)
18. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
19. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH)
20. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
21. Diane Watson (D-CA)
22. Henry Waxman (D-CA)
23. David Wu (D-OR)