Articles, essays, editorials, and meditations on T&W’s mission, “educating the imagination.”
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by Aracelis Girmay 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. Yusef Komunyakaa was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in 1947,…
by Sally Ventura This essay is adapted from Sally Ventura’s keynote speech at the 2018 New York State English Council Conference. One day, a student in one of my English 11 classes arrived just a minute or two after the bell. I was standing at my podium, reviewing the day’s plans in the way that…
by Greg Feezell Voice is how the writing feels. Raindrops fall steadily, glancing off the window, tapping against a drainage pipe outside our classroom. Despite the rain, two neighborhood crows confer noisily. Inside, dry if not warm, I confer with a writer, age eight. I teach third grade at Saint Maur International School, in…
by Ruth A. Wilson A number of years ago, I published a paper on the “ecological autobiography” as a tool that could be used to get people thinking about their relationship with the natural world and exploring their “ecological identity.” The audience I had in mind was environmental educators working primarily with adults. To my…
by Emily James Author and St. John’s University professor Gabriel Brownstein selected Emily James’ essay, “At First, the Ground Shakes,” to receive the 2019 Bechtel Prize. Teachers & Writers Collaborative awards the Bechtel Prize to the author of an exemplary essay that explores themes related to creative writing, arts education, and/or the imagination. James’ essay is…
by David Andrew Stoler The girl from Queens is quiet and shy—one of the smallest students in her seventh-grade class, she is also hearing impaired and wears special headphones connected directly to a microphone that each of her teachers must wear… that is, when she gets up the nerve to remind them. Now, while her…
By J.D. Mader For six years, I was lucky enough to teach writing to at-risk, low-income youth in San Francisco. I worked at two Catholic schools, but for a non-profit named ACHIEVE. I was a shadow. I designed my own curriculum. I was able to work with students in small groups, not a typical classroom….
by David Andrew Stoler At night, when nobody else was awake, the two teenagers would send secret messages to each other: short bursts of text that they would wrap like little gifts in layer after layer of meaning. Gossip, intrigue, flirtation, the blossoming of young love…if their parents found out what was really going on—if…
by David Rosenthal HER GHOST It walks with her to school, floating on a pool of rainbow oil along the gutter floor. It darkens chain-link lace, foreshadowing the face of someone sleeping by a boarded door. It slides past broken panes, and crawls across four lanes of careless traffic on the boulevard, then jumps…
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,”…