Articles, essays, editorials, and meditations on T&W’s mission, “educating the imagination.”
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By Sara Mansfield Taber To write well, a writer must be willing to transform himself. If his work is to grow toward its full potential, the writer must hone his manuscripts, of course, but first he must become a dedicated student of the literary craft. This is not as simple as it sounds, as it…
By Matthew Burgess Hafiz Ahmed is at the top of Ms. Ramelize’s roster. On the first day of my residency at PS 64 in Queens, I announce the coincidence to the class: “Hafiz is also the name of a great poet!” His namesake beams back at me and Lukis asks if I’ll bring Hafiz poems…
By Jacy Bryla “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Eight MMM-Masks in my bank account, in my bank account,” echoes down a corridor in New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. The lyrical reinvention of 21 Savage’s “Bank Account” is sung by a middle school boy from PS/IS 218 Rafael Hernandez Dual Language…
By Erika Luckert I was developing a lesson for a 6th-grade unit on poetry and mythology. We would read two different Medusa poems, I decided, and then students would have a chance to write their own poems addressed to Medusa. The first poem I selected was Sylvia Plath’s “Medusa,” The second, by Lynn Schmeidler, was…
By Lesley Machon My calendars have always been marked with stars for two important occasions: Independence Day and the first day of school. If I close my eyes I can still taste the red, white, and blue of rocket popsicles at 4th of July parades, and smell the lingering char of fireworks sizzling skyward from…
By Olaya Barr and India Gonzalez The two of us have been co-teaching sixth-graders at PS 122, Mamie Fay in Queens, for the past six months. During this time we have learned a great deal about ourselves as individual teachers and as a pair. Because of this, we thought it would be beneficial to present…
by Grace Paley This transcript of Paley’s speech at T&W’s Educating the Imagination forum was originally published in 1996. —Ed. I just looked over at my children [in the audience]. It’s very embarrassing to be spoken about in front of one’s children. Recently I was trying to remember exactly how we started Teachers & Writers Collaborative….
By Peter Markus “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” This is the poet Theodore Roethke doing the saying, nearly six decades ago. Could the times we are living in now be any darker? It’s true: every generation sees itself as the last. We are post-apocalyptically obsessed. And yet I’m sure, through this,…
2018 Runner-up of the Bechtel Prize By Glenis Redmond Author and T&W Board member Tayari Jones selected Glenis Redmond’s essay, “Poetry as a Mirror,” as the runner-up for the 2018 Bechtel Prize. Teachers & Writers Collaborative awards the annual Bechtel Prize to the author of an essay that explores themes related to creative writing, arts education,…
By Phyllis Meshulam I. On the night of October 8, 2017, aptly-named Diablo winds from the east, gusting at as much as 70 miles per hour, carried embers over the mountains that separate Sonoma and Napa Counties in wine-country California. The resulting massive wildfires burned more than 5,000 homes to the ground in Sonoma County…