Martin Brandt is a high-school English teacher in San Jose, CA and a teacher-consultant with the San Jose Area Writing Project , as well as the author of Between the Commas: Sentence Instruction That Builds Confident Writers (and Writing Teachers) . In this episode we'll discuss Martin's book, instructional strategies from the book, his development as a teacher over the last 30 years, and teaching writing in general....
The educator-founders of Equity Unbound , Maha Bali , of the American University in Cairo, Egypt; Catherine Cronin of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education in Ireland; and Mia Zamora , director of the Kean University Writing Project; saw the need to assist their fellow faculty in practices for equity-focused open learning. Working with another colleague, Autumm Caines of the University of Michigan, Dearborn, Maha and Mia began curating and adapting...
Our guests Sadaf Kahn, English Supervisor and IB Teacher at TNS Beaconhouse in Pakistan, and Bryn Orum, co-director of the Greater Madison Writing Project (GMWP), discuss how they have used GMWP’s Rise Up and Write curriculum in schools and summer camps from Madison, Wisconsin, to Lahore, Pakistan. Hear stories of young people around the world using writing to effect change in the places they live in and care about.
For many teachers working to figure out remote or socially distanced teaching, two of the biggest challenges this school year are creating trusting, mutual connections with their students and forming productive classroom student/peer communities, especially supportive writing communities. Those twin challenges are at the heart of this CoLab with educators Anna Smith, Matthew Johnson, and Kim Jaxon. Read more at get resources at Write Now , our publication at Medium....
We are honored to feature three debut Penguin Random House authors for a special back-to-school series of The Write Time. For our third and final episode of this mini-series, we will visit with author Kim Johnson and educator Synthia Shelby will be leading the discussion. Kim Johnson held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen. She's now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders...
As part of a special back-to-school series of The Write Time, we visited with three debut Penguin Random House authors. For our second episode we visit with author Ger Duany and educator William King leads the discussion. Ger Duany is a survivor of the tragic exodus of an estimated 20,000 Sudanese children, the "Lost boys of Sudan," and has been appointed as UN Goodwill Ambassador. Born in the town of Akobo, Ger was caught up in Sudan's north-south civil war and was forcefully recruited as a chi...
Writing Can Change Everything: Middle Level Kids Writing Themselves Into the World , edited by Shelbie Witte , is the latest from NCTE’s Principles In Practice series. Offering concrete illustrations of effective classroom practices based on NCTE research briefs and policy statements, books in this series demonstrate how principles come alive in practice. Listen to this episode of NWP Radio with Shelbie, Sarah Bonner, Tracei Willis, and Joe Pizzo as they talk about their classrooms and the power...
In this 20-minute interview Jessyca Mathews , recent Michigan Region 5 Teacher of the Year and a teacher-leader with the Red Cedar Writing Project, reflects on working with her students this past spring to surface "what really is necessary" to support their writing and learning.
Robert Rivera-Amezola is a Digital Literacy Teacher at Francis Scott Key Elementary and a teacher-leader with the Philadelphia Writing Project. In this 19-minute interview, Robert discusses insights that came from watching students chat with each other online during non-teacher directed time.
Beth Rimer is an Instructor of Composition at Miami Univeristy in Oxford, OH, and codirector of the Ohio Writing Project. Over the course of this interview, Beth describes the ways to build community and give students choices while also helping them learn to make choices. She also talks about the distinction between teaching writing and assigning writing, a particular challenge in remote and online environments that can focus on "making assignments."...
We are honored to feature three debut Penguin Random House authors for a special back-to-school series of The Write Time. For our first episode we will visit with author Candice Iloh and educator Sharonica Nelson will be leading the discussion. Candice Iloh is a first generation Nigerian-American author and dancer based in Philadelphia, PA. Iloh has performed poetry and spoken word around the country and has served as a program director and workshop facilitator with Voices UnBroken, and as a tea...
This CoLab features Writing Project colleagues—author-educator Ruth Devlin , artist-illustrator-educator Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez , and editor Amy Bauman—sharing their story of collaborating from a distance in the creation of a picture book: Ants: Across, Around, and Through . In this episode they share their process, the challenges and possibilities of collaborative work, and consider implications for teaching writing....
Join us for another NWP CoLab where we'll further explore online instruction, specifically how to make it manageable for both students and teachers. Our featured guest is Deanna Mascle , an Instructor of English at Morehead State University in Kentucky, and the director of the Morehead Writing Project. Also joining the discussion are middle/high-school educators David Lopez (CA), Katherine Williams (MS), and Ben Woodcock (MI). Related Resources Blogs that discuss particular practices referenced ...
It's a document—likely, but not necessarily, a Google Doc—that has hyperlinks. Simple, right? But that simple definition doesn't explain why there is so much buzz about them. Perhaps there's more to it. In this 29-minute episode, Jeremy Hyler , middle school teacher, member of the Chippewa River Writing Project , and Hyperdoc fan, explains why he finds the Hyperdoc a useful tool for online, remote, and hyper-flexible teaching. Related Resources Hyperdocs (core website) Cult of Pedagogy Interview...
About Beyond Storytime In April 2020, with school buildings closed for shelter-in-place, NWP Writers Council members, teachers, and children’s book authors and illustrators came together to rethink the stand-alone storytime and the traditional “author visit.” The Beyond Storytime CoLab was launched from this initial conversation and in each episode we dig into one of aspect of the work and spend time co-designing together. Our Guests Sandra Hogue Aram Kim Kyle Lukoff K-Fai Steele Gordon C. James...
How can middle and high school English Language Arts (ELA) teachers work towards becoming anti-racist educators? Michelle Falter, Chandra Alston, and Crystal Chen Lee, former English teachers and current ELA teacher educators at North Carolina State University, share actionable steps and curated resources that work particularly well for middle and high school ELA teachers. About Our Guests Michelle Falter is a former middle and high school English teacher and a Red Clay Writing Project (Athens, ...
In this short NWP Radio episode, CSUWP Teacher-Consultant Bud Hunt , now a library administrator, describes how libraries can assist (and want to assist) teachers in the school year ahead.
Can making and tinkering help us manage an uncertain return to school? We talk with Steve Fulton and Cindy Urbanski, both of the UNC Charlotte Writing Project, about their new book, Making Middle School: Cultivating Critical Literacy and Interdisciplinary Learning in Maker Spaces . The book grew out of the National Writing Project's Intersections project , which supported local Writing Project sites in partnering with local science and tech museums to co-develop programming....
For this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author Erin Stewart . Erin uses her background in journalism to research and write fiction based on real life and her debut novel is Scars Like Wings . Leading the conversation is Esther Theodore, an English Language Teacher at Stamford High in Connecticut and a teacher-leader with CWP-Fairfield. Esther is originally from Haiti and believes that every individual carries with them a story that enriches the educational journey, stretching it beyond...
The final episode of our seven-part series, The Nebraska Experience , explores an approach to teaching argument writing that involves students in researching local issues and presenting advocacy writing live to legislators at the state capitol. The project detailed here involved a semester-long collaboration between college and high-school students as part of the Husker Writers program, which sponsors secondary-university writing partnerships. High-school teacher Jessica Meyer and college profes...
Hear about a new partnership between the National Park Service and the Nebraska Writing Project that is under development and moving toward a planned river float for area high school students to allow them to experience the Niobrara River in a way they may not have done in the past. The Nebraska Writing Project is planning writing experiences in the areas of the significant river ecology, paleontology, Native American history and use, the historical Fort Niobrara cavalry including buffalo soldie...
For this episode of The Write Time , we have the pleasure of visiting with award-winning author Adib Khorram . Adib is the author of Darius The Great is Not Okay and his next book, Darius The Great Deserves Better , will be released August 25, 2020. Leading the discussion will be Aram Kabodian , a longtime educator, the 2016 MCTE Middle School Teacher of the Year, and a Red Cedar Writing Project teacher-leader....
Part five of The Nebraska Experience gives an outline of the initial work between the Nebraska Writing Project and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and examines the rich place-based teaching that occurred in this partnership. Our guests describe how they developed the paleontological, geological, and early history of the plains stories from this park into a series of workshops designed for teachers. The goal of this partnership was to create place-based workshops which: immersed teachers dire...
This podcast—part four of a seven-part series—focuses on how the Prairie Visions Writing Workshop for students and teachers came about due to the wish of the Homestead National Monument of America’s National Park Service to bring a focused writing workshop to the monument location that would take advantage of the history and process of the Homestead Act of 1862. The workshop developed writing sessions that brought students to experience the physical environment and ecology of the TallGrass Prair...
This podcast focuses on Nebraska Writing Project co-director Melissa Legate ’s pedagogical work to blend a place-based study of rural population decline with the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) focus on writing from multiple perspectives and nuanced claims. This project is offered as an example of the place-conscious principle of creating active citizens in the local community. Legate explains a “text set” developed from local newspapers on rural decline in her area and her...
This podcast describes an 8-week joint class project between Nebraska Writing Project teacher-leader Cara Morgenson’s Thematic Issues course for level three English Language Learners at Lincoln High School, Dr. Robert Brooke’s college junior Uses of Literacy students, and Homestead National Monument of America. The project focused on immigration issues in Lincoln, Nebraska, grounded in the historical study of the Homestead Act as a “first wave” of immigration in Nebraska, Morgenson’s students’ f...
This podcast is the first of a seven-part series that introduces the big concepts of place-conscious education as used by Nebraska Writing Project teachers. Special guest Dr. Robert Brooke, director of the Nebraska Writing Project, situates listeners to place-conscious work in Nebraska in three stages: the Rural Institute program developed 1995-2007; the online Place-Conscious Institute and the suburban inquiry team 2008-2015; and the current community engagement/literacy programs of Husker Writ...
In this episode of The Write Time we are honored to have Laurie Halse Anderson join us to discuss writing, learning, and life. She is the author of Speak , Prom , Twisted , Catalyst , Wintergirls , The Impossible Knife of Memory , and more. Laurie is interviewed by NWP teacher-leader Rebecca Marsick who has taught elementary, middle, and high school, and is currently a Secondary Literacy Coach for Westport Public Schools....
In this episode of The Write Time, Jarred Amato the co-founder of Project LIT is interviewed by Connecticut English teacher Sean Astle. Jarred himself is a high school English teacher in Nashville, TN and Sean Astle is an English teacher in Connecticut where he is studying how young adult literature can be used to improve the literacy practices of all readers and writers. Each episode of The Write Time provides writing prompts along with a little time to write to engage listeners....
Listen to this conversation between children's book authors and illustrators Shanda McCloskey , K-Fai Steele , Mika Song , and Ana Aranda along with Texas educator and NWP teacher-leader Katie McKay . Together, our guests will examine works-in-progress and talk about how they can support young writers in understanding authors’ craft....
