By Caron Levis “If you could cut some of the groaning out of revision, that would be great.” The sixth-grade teacher who says this rolls her eyes and the rest of the teachers nod in agreement. “Oh, yes, I can’t get them to work on things more than once.” “It’s like pulling teeth…” Lessons that…
Renée Watson’s books include the YA novels Piecing Me Together, What Momma Left Me, and This Side of Home, which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults award by the American Library Association. Renée’s writing and teaching work aims to help youth cope with trauma and discuss social issues. Her picture book, A…
Renée Watson’s books include the YA novels Piecing Me Together, What Momma Left Me, and This Side of Home, which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults award by the American Library Association. Renée’s writing and teaching work aims to help youth cope with trauma and discuss social issues. Her picture book, A…
By Merna Ann Hecht Poets and writers who work as teaching artists understand that establishing a space where mutual regard and a sense of belonging can flourish is of utmost importance. The creative spark and humanizing impulse we find within literature and language is our medium for generating such an atmosphere, where all feel honored…
An Interview with Patricia Smith by Christian McEwen In 2015, Bauhan Publishing published Sparks from the Anvil: the Smith College Poetry Interviews, a collection of interviews with superb contemporary poets by writer and teaching artist Christian McEwen. Teachers & Writers Magazine has been publishing highlights from this impressive book. Here, McEwen and Patricia Smith talk…
Evelyn Krieger’s essay, “Liar, Liar,” was runner-up for the 2016 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. In “Liar, Liar,” Krieger reflects on the sources of imagination and the joy of giving your…
The following is an excerpt from Liza Jessie Peterson’s forthcoming book, ALL DAY: A Memoir of Love and Survival Teaching Incarcerated Kids. Liza began teaching creative writing at Rikers Island, New York City’s male jail complex, as a teaching artist in 1997. In 2008, she returned as a full-time GED teacher for the NYC Department of…
TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING By Kevin Baxter Third-grade teacher Kevin Baxter’s students turned their stories into books and their collective work into a classroom quilt. Words are like harpoons. Once they go in they are very hard to pull out. —Fred Hoyle Asheville, North Carolina As Hannah sits with her legs folded beneath her, she hunches…
TEACHING ARTIST VOICE By Barbara Feinberg Story Shop, my creative writing program for kids, meets in a comfortable room in an old church in a small suburb in Westchester County, just north of New York City, and has been going strong for over twenty years. My longest-running workshop during that time is made…
Each girl in Story Shop’s Tuesday group—which has been together for over four years now—is working on a unique project of her own choosing and design. Some kids write a different story or vignette or build a new sculpture each week; some have been working on the same project over the course of the year,…