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…
Going to the Theater at Age 91 (& ½)
by Lydia LaFleur When I read that the musical My Fair Lady would be having a revival at Lincoln Center this summer, I was thrilled. I had seen the original production with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison back in the late 1950s and had listened to the recording multiple times. It’s my favorite musical, with its joyous…
Disability as Metaphor
By Jennifer Bartlett As a poet, I find myself particularly sensitive to words. This is bit ironic as I have always thought of myself as someone who is quite blunt. When my son was young, I taught him that the bad words were not the swear words you might expect, but words like “retard,” “lame,”…
Revision by Translation
by Erika Luckert This lesson uses translation as a way to teach revision in poetry. Grades: Middle and high school Opening Discussion: Ask students if anyone speaks a language other than English. Give the students a chance to share their other languages with each other, and ask if anybody has tried translating, either orally or…
Karen Fitzgerald and Kathy Creutzburg on Richard Lewis’ Influence
by Robert Hirschfield Teaching artist Karen Fitzgerald describes what it’s like collaborating with Richard Lewis. “He never says no to an idea. I don’t think he knows the word no. If you have an idea that’s out there, he’s totally willing to explore it. He tries to figure out how it can work with what…
How Did You Get Here: Richard Lewis’ Fifty Years of Teaching Children Poetry, And Being Taught By Them
by Robert Hirschfield Picking at the soil grains of my childhood play a little longer Richard Lewis, 83, left his door open for me. It is on the fourth floor of a strange old office building in Astoria, Queens that houses three funeral parlors and a museum. Short,…
Thankful
T&W writer David Surface collaborated with 6th-grade students at IS 187, Hudson Cliffs School in Manhattan through several writing projects designed to deepen students’ understanding of the people of ancient Mesopotamia by bringing creative writing strategies into the social studies classroom. Using ancient Sumerian sculptures of battle scenes as a starting point, students were asked: Why did the…
Step
By Angelica Rosa This essay appears in Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories from Young Female Voices, published by Tin House Books in October 2018. On my street, growing up, it took under thirty-two steps to walk straight to any store. After school, as I passed my friends walking together, or with…
Math Meets Verse: Counting, Decoding, & Rhythm
by Alice Pencavel T&W teaching Alice Pencavel offers a lesson plan that lets students connect language and equation, demystifies difficult language with concrete numbers and rhythms, and fosters collaboration among students. In so doing, the lesson elicits a physical pleasure associated with Shakespeare. Guiding Questions: What feelings arise from the music? How fast/slow is it?…
2 Night Songs and a Morning Scream
My Night Song by Jonathan V. (2nd grade) I hear my brother snoring It scares me I hear my dog bark all day long I can’t stand it I hear the moon singing jazz While it goes down I hear the dirt flow through the wind My Morning Poem by Mikaela W. (2nd grade)…
Preparing to Perform: Practicing Peer Feedback
by Erika Luckert At the end of most T&W programs, we hold a celebration that launches an anthology of student work and features performances of poems by a selection of student readers. While not every student will perform their work onstage, it’s important to me as an educator that every student feels a part of…