More About Teachers & Writers Collaborative
About Teachers & Writers
MISSION Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) seeks to educate the imagination by offering innovative creative writing programs for students and…
Workshops & Professional Development
Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) provides school-based and after-school writing programs led by professional writers for K-12 students, professional development…
Resources
Books T&W has published resources about the teaching of creative writing for more nearly 50 years. With more…
NY Poetry Out Loud
What is Poetry Out Loud? Poetry Out Loud (POL), an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts and the…
Quality, Not Quantity: Writing Quintillas in Middle School Spanish
by Sydney Lumbreras Clifton Teaching world languages in middle school is a job that requires focus, energy, and creativity. Over the last five years of learning how to be an educator, I have used my creative mind in ways I never would have imagined as a young artist. That being said, the scope of creativity…
Poems by Soad
Vanessa Casco, teacher Assignment: Students read The BreakBeat Poets Poets Anthology and chose a poem to inspire them to create new work. Day 2 Poemby Soad This, we block and ignoreThis, we are blind to. The world has swallowed itself into rage and hate. Into warThis, where the jokes end.This, where the little boys are…
Dear America
by Matt Malyon The day after the 2016 election, I was scheduled to facilitate a creative writing workshop at our site in Skagit County Juvenile Detention. I’d awoken that morning into what felt like a new and darker version of America. Deep melancholy would be putting it mildly. By midmorning, I was working on the…
Resentments
By Rebecca Rikleen Rebecca Rikleen has been in the Writing from Life Experience Workshop at Morningside Retirement and Health Services for well over two decades. In recent years, she has begun writing about her aging, health, and struggles to keep alive her many interests in traveling around New York City. The Writing from Life Experience…
What They Bring to the Room: A Visit to T&W’s Anti-Gun Violence Residency
by Cynthia Amoah On a damp Friday afternoon, the rain spills itself onto umbrellas suspended in the air, making a mess of everything the way it does. Hip-hop blares from car speakers and the aroma of the good, good spices of a local Jamaican restaurant drifts onto the street. The High School for Contemporary Arts…
“Where I’m From” Poems
Assignment: Students used their personal histories and along with their poetic voice to create image-driven poems based on where they are from, who they are, and who they want to become. —Emily James, teacher Where I’m Fromby Mikayla I am from Harman Streetfrom the family everyone knows,the part of Brooklyn not everyone likes.The warm hugs…
Finding Your Voices: How Jericho Brown, Diana Ross, and Janis Joplin Can Inspire Student Writing
by Tiphanie Yanique The following is an excerpt from Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry, a new book from Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Edited by Matthew Burgess, Spellbound offers a range of exciting ideas to inspire students of all ages to explore their potential as writers and creators. Why Voice? When I was a young…
Collaborative Students, Collaborative Teachers
by Ethan Victor At Bronx Park Middle School (BPMS) in the East Bronx, students are encouraged to communicate and be creative. Aided by teaching artists and using exploratory and alternative styles of thinking and lesson plans to support writing with imagery and vision, students are pushed toward developing writing skills. This emphasis directly follows Bronx…
Exploring Candidates and Campaigning
by Jessie Paddock Objectives: Students will: Engage in close reading of tweets by 2020 presidential candidates. Consider the importance of evidence and action as the next steps of a protest. Expand protest signs to serve as pillars of an imaginary election campaign or use protest signs as an inspiration for a short piece of fiction…
When a Poem is a Poem First: Celebrating Affect in Writing Education
by Brittany R. Collins Midway down a nursing home corridor, past the cafeteria and behind a cloth room divider, lay Alexander Vanderburgh Jr., aged eighty-six and counting. Alex was a residential dementia patient and the father of my friend, Ann. He liked math, mountains, and chocolate chip ice cream, the latter of which I carried…