In addition to the collection of WITS organizations on T&W’s website, here are some more helpful resources!
Resources for Teaching Artists
Association of Teaching Artists
The Association of Teaching Artists (ATA) was founded at a Summit in Poughkeepsie, New York in April 1998. New York State Teaching Artists, arts administrators, and leaders in statewide arts funding came together at the request of The New York State Council on The Arts to consider the need and feasibility of forming an organization of Teaching Artists.
Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center (AHIRC)
Since 1998, The Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center (AHIRC) website has helped artists everywhere get affordable, quality health insurance and health care. Search “New York” on their main page and you’ll find a wealth of information.
Freelancers Union
In New York, Freelancers Union offers eligible members PPO or high-deductible plans through Freelancers Insurance Company (FIC). Freelancers Union also offers health insurance in other states through United Healthcare’s Golden Rule Insurance Company.
The Art of Money: Personal Financial Resources for Artists
Held every spring (usually in May), the Art of Money is a great one-day event that provides tax, health coverage, and personal finance information for NYC’s working artists.
NYC Office of Financial Empowerment
Budgets, banking, loans and taxes are important pieces of the puzzle to understanding your money. DCA’s OFE will show you ways to get, manage, save, and protect your money, provide important information about debt and credit, and help you find a counselor or class.
Artspire
The Artspire Fiscal Sponsorship (brought to you by the New York Foundation for the Arts) program offers individual artists and emerging arts organizations in all disciplines the ability to raise funds using their tax-exempt status. Artspire is run by artists for artists, and is one of the oldest, largest, most prestigious and artist friendly in the country.
Fractured Atlas Fiscal Sponsorship
Fractured Atlas wants to help you raise money for your artistic work. As the country’s largest arts fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas works with thousands of artists and arts organizations to provide education and support for raising funds.
The Actor’s Fund
The Actors Fund is a nationwide human services organization that helps all professionals in performing arts and entertainment. The Fund is a safety net, providing programs and services for those who are in need, crisis or transition.
Arts Education
The Kennedy Center/Arts Edge
ARTSEDGE is the Kennedy Center’s free digital learning platform for arts education.
National Endowment for the Arts/NEA Blog
Through artist interviews, spotlights on NEA-supported and other projects, guest posts, and other content, the NEA celebrates the diverse and dynamic landscape of the arts across America.
The Right to Write NYTimes Blog
Draft features essays by grammarians, historians, linguists, journalists, novelists and others on the art of writing — from the comma to the tweet to the novel — and why a well-crafted sentence matters more than ever in the digital age
Americas for the Arts
Nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America.
Arts Education Partnership
Every child deserves a complete and competitive education that includes the arts.
Teaching Resources
Danielson Framework for Teaching
The Framework for Teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction, aligned to the INTASC standards, and grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching.
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library’s vast digital collections in their teaching.
National Writing Project
The National Writing Project’s 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced writing project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques.
New York Times Learning Network
The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content. Teachers can use or adapt our lessons across subject areas and levels.
OER Commons: Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge.
PBS Teachers
Here you’ll find classroom materials suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade levels. We provide thousands of lesson plans, teaching activities, on-demand video assets, and interactive games and simulations. These resources are correlated to state and national educational standards and are tied to PBS’ award-winning on-air and online programming like NOVA, Nature, Cyberchase, Between the Lions and more.
Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP)
Instructional strategies and lesson plans for English language learners.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
UDL is a set of principles for special ed curriculum development that gives all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone–not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.
Radio Rookies: WNYC
Radio Rookies is a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world.
Represent Magazine
A great online magazine published by Youth Communication (see below) and written by NYC teens in foster care; could serve as an invaluable tool when teaching personal essay writing (or college application essay writing) to teens.
StoryCorps
Educators have used StoryCorps stories and interview methods in their classrooms since we started in 2003. StoryCorps is powerful for schools—our stories teach history, and our interview methods teach the value of listening.
TIME for Kids
TIME For Kids is a weekly classroom news magazine that motivates kids to read! Issues cover a wide range of real-world topics kids love to learn about – and it’s the best nonfiction text you’ll find!
Youth Communication
Youth Communication helps marginalized youth develop their full potential through reading and writing, so that they can succeed in school and at work and contribute to their communities.
Common Core
“Has Common Core Lost the Plot?” Paul Horton. Living in Dialogue, January 9, 2014
“When we marginalize storytelling, literary fiction, and creative writing within K-12 language curricula in favor of nonfiction documents and the construction of analytical memos that might please Pearson Education, McKinsey consulting, and Bill Gates; we risk losing something more important than the ability to construct analytical memos.”
Teachers & Writers Magazine is published by Teachers & Writers Collaborative as a resource for teaching the art of writing to people of all ages. The online magazine presents a wide range of ideas and approaches, as well as lively explorations of T&W’s mission to celebrate the imagination and create greater equity in and through the literary arts.
