Yearly Archives: 2013

Teachers & Writers Magazine Spring Issue 
Writing Through Trauma, excerpt two

The spring issue of the magazine is now out, and features a special section on Writing Through Trauma.  In this special section we asked writers in the schools from programs nationwide to describe their work with children and adults whose lives have been changed by violence, illness, the death of a loved one, or other tragedies. In the wake of the violence that occurred this past December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, we asked these writers to offer their insights into how words can help comfort and heal in the face of grief.  Last week we posted a piece by T&W teaching artist David Surface on working with veterans in a writing workshop. In this second excerpt, teaching artist Autumn Hayes, from WITS Houston describes a lesson in which she had elementary school students write new year's wishes to the children of Newtown Connecticut.

Reaching for Others: Writing New Year’s Wishes to Newtown Students
by Autumn Hayes

But—how do I know what they want?” Armarde asked, his face a dervish of anxiety. “I really want them to like it.”

I couldn’t blame him. I was at Lockhart-Turner Elementary School in Houston, Texas, working with Armarde and his fellow fourth-graders on an understandably daunting task: each child was to write and illustrate a New Year’s wish for the students of Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. The tragic shooting there was only six days behind them—fewer for students I’d already visited at Kelso Elementary—and I had made it clear that these wishes would be mailed out to real people in real pain.

The idea started this September, with an exhibit entitled “Dear John and Dominique: Letters and Drawings from the Menil Archives.” I work at the Menil with Writers in the Schools in Houston, Texas, and I was particularly struck by a series of hand-painted New Year's cards from artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The gorgeous, full-page artworks, splashed with whimsical watercolors, wished pleasures like “friendly monsters in your dreams,” and I knew—in a world of snark and online bullying—I wanted students to see and emulate such kindness, tenderness, and creativity.

Then Sandy Hook happened, and I faced the choice to: (a) pretend that this didn’t affect us and teach revision as planned, or (b) walk the walk and engage 160 children in the messiness of reaching for others. (more...)

Celebrate the long history of women and T&W with a look at this 2002 interview with T&W Board Co-Chair Nancy Larson Shapiro and the enormous impact she’s had on T&W.

In 1976, fresh from the Midwest, Nancy Larson joined the staff of the ten-year-old Teachers & Writers Collaborative and became its Director three years later. In the following interview, she offers insights gleaned from her long tenure and reflects on the educational trends, writing movements, and visionary teachers that have had an impact on the Collaborative.

This Interview, "A Different Measure", is available in the archive in our Digital Resource Center.

One of the staff's favorite office activities, changing the toner cartridge for the copy machine! This photo may need a new caption, any suggestions?

And if you see Amy (left) at AWP in Boston this week, be sure you say hello!

Teachers & Writers Magazine Spring Issue 
Writing Through Trauma, excerpt one

The spring issue of the magazine is now out, and features a special section on Writing Through Trauma.   Each day of the week, here in New York City and across the country, teaching artists walk into classrooms to share their passion for writing. Too often, the stories their students have to tell are of lives disrupted by circumstances beyond their control. What can these teaching artists offer in response to a child who is sick, a teen who has lost a friend to gun violence, a veteran plagued by the war he left behind? What can the act of writing give to those who are suffering? The violence that occurred this past December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, put these questions in stark relief, but they are questions teaching artists struggle with often. In this special section we asked writers in the schools from programs nationwide to describe their work with children and adults whose lives have been changed by violence, illness, the death of a loved one, or other tragedies. Each of their experiences is unique, but together their stories offer insight into how words can help comfort and heal in the face of grief.  

In the following excerpt, T&W teaching artist David Surface describe his work in a writing workshop for veterans.

The Story We Tell Ourselves Afterward: At the Veterans Writing Workshop
by David Surface

When I tell people that I work with military veterans, one of the first things they say is, It must help them to talk about their experiences, or, It must be good for them to get those terrible things off their chest.

The truth is that there are many other places where veterans can share difficult experiences. Group and individual counseling, as well as veterans’ support or “rap” groups, all provide camaraderie and an emo- tional outlet. The question is, does writing and the writing workshop experience offer anything more?

Most everyone agrees that creative or “expressive” writing can have positive effects for people who have experienced trauma. How this works is much less clear. In my experience, the explanation is to be found not in the language of psychology or neuroscience, but in the language of the writing process itself. I believe the key word in understanding how the writing process can help people living with trauma is revision.

As every writer or teacher of writing knows, revision can be painful. To revise, and revise well, we need to stop seeing our first drafts as something fixed and inflexible, and start seeing them a something malleable that we have power over and can change for the better. (more...)

Join us at the 2013 AWP Conference in Boston, March 6-9. Here is a list of the Writers in the Schools (WITS) Alliance events this year.

WITS Alliance Schedule of Events
AWP 2013: Boston
Hynes Convention Center

All events take place in the Hynes Convention Center unless otherwise noted.

WITS Alliance Booth: #210

Wednesday, March 6

WITS Day of Service hosted by WriteBoston
12-4

WITS Alliance Membership Meeting
Room 209, Level 2
4:30-5:45

Thursday, March 7

WITS Writers on Teaching: A Reading
Lacy M. Johnson, Giuseppe Taurino, Miah Arnold, Stacy Parker Le Melle, Nicole Zaza
Related Panel
Room 102, Plaza Level
10:30-11:45

This reading by new, veteran, and former WITS teachers will explore what it really means to be agents of the WITS mission—to engage children in the power of the written word, to nurture imaginations, and to awaken young minds to the adventures of language. Readers will discuss how WITS teaching can sometimes be at least as revolutionary for teachers as for their students, even having potentially life-altering effects on teaching, writing, and overall worldview.

A Reading from Writers in the Schools [WITS Alliance]
Alise Alousi, Bao-Long Chu, Michael Dickman, Tim Seibles
Room 201, Level 2
1:30-2:45

Four poets will share work by young students as well as their own work. They will discuss the ways in which their work with school children has affected their own writing. Two of the poets will have participated in the AWP WITS Day of Service and will tell about that. Students from the Day of Service project will be invited to the event.

Rowing Your Boat across the Curriculum [WITS Alliance] 
Amy Swauger, Sarah Dohrmann, Margaret Dougherty-Goodburn, Mary Rechner, Terry Ann Thaxton
Room 102, Plaza Level
4:30-5:45
 
From lyrics on the nesting habits of eagles to odes to the ozone layer, teachers are incorporating creative writing projects in science, math, and social studies curricula. From kindergarten to college, instructors are being asked to merge the disciplines. In this session, panelists will share strategies to engage students in creative writing across the curriculum.

WITS Alliance Reception
Room 303
7:00-8:15

Friday, March 8

Founder’s Toolkit: How to Start a Non- Profit in Your Own Backyard [WITS Alliance] 
Long Chu, Allen Gee, Janet Hurley, Lisa Murphy-Lamb, Jerome Vielman
Room 102, Plaza Level
10:30-11:45

If every organization is the lengthened shadow of one person, and if the MFA is the new MBA, then poets and novelists are already equipped with the imaginative drive and divergent thinking necessary to start and operate a successful nonprofit. This panel of founding directors and arts administrators will provide useful information on how to start a literary non-profit. We will guide participants through the process of incorporating one’s passion into a viable project working for public good.

Phillip Lopate Book Signing
WITS Alliance Booth #210
1:30-2:30

Fundraising with Individuals – Crafting the Story [WITS Alliance]
Jack McBride, Kate Brennan, Lee Briccetti, Michele Kotler
Room 102, Plaza Level
3:00-4:15

Non-profits start brainstorm sessions with this phrase: if money were no object. But, money is an object, and not having it is an obstacle. In an economy where revenues and contributions are down, non-profits rely on individual donors. While 70% of all giving comes from individuals, just 5% of donations go to the arts. How do we shape a passion for our work into a message that encourages increased giving? This panel explores ways we craft our stories to win the hearts of individual donors.

Saturday, March 9

Writing to Change the World: Social Justice and Youth Writing Programs [WITS Alliance]
Janet Hurley, Tamiko Ambrose Murray, Glenis Redmond, Christina Shea, Terry Blackhawk
Room 208, Level 2
12:00-1:15

Does the endeavor of creative writing intrinsically encourage the subject of social justice and/or nurture the same? Panelists who work with students, elementary through college age, will discuss the art of teaching youth. They will chronicle the ways in which creative writing often triggers or gives space for idealism in students and empowers a sense of agency. What are the teachable moments and what risks are involved?
 
Where in the World is the Writer in Residence? [WITS Alliance]
Cecily Sailer, Alise Alousi, Tina Angelo, Josephine Jones
Room 102, Plaza Level
3:00-4:15

Although people might agree poets make the world a better place, poetry is often marginalized to classrooms. What happens when we move the poet from the ivory tower into the real world? What if a poet-in-residence could work in the hospital, museum, theater, or science lab? This panel explores how individuals and arts organizations can enliven and deepen the teaching of creative writing through unlikely collaborations. 
  
The WITS Alliance
because writing is revolutionary
witsalliance.org

As Black History Month eases into its final week, why not use a lesson from the T&W book Sing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature to inspire students to write imaginatively?  Among the authors discussed are James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Rita Dove, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jean Toomer.

"The extraordinary difficulty of childhood, as I recall it, is making sense of an often contradictory and unpredictable world handed down by adults. Adults offer children maxims meant to buffer and protect, but sometimes these maxims do not help, leaving children with nowhere to vent their frustrations, voice their fears, or solicit other help to decipher an incongruent world. This condition of the child in some ways seems to parallel the experience of African people in the diaspora: that a people taught one set of rules that often does not apply to them, or are made to pledge allegiance to a country that has repeatedly discriminated and alienated them. Because of this there are chants and charms, mantras and prayers to help others regain their balance and move forward. African American poetry disproves the notion that words can't hurt us. While some words hurt and maim and disfigure, other words heal, nourish the soul, salve the will, and strengthen the determination."

-An excerpt from T&W book Sing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature, edited by Lorenzo Thomas

For other resources and lessons to motivate student writing, use our Digital Resource Center to search T&W's archives of magazines and lesson plans.

T&W writers' in-class writing prompts and exercises inspired and generated the adapted poem found in A POEM AS BIG AS NEW YORK CITY.  From this imaginative, diverse, massive, and multi-faceted material, an adapted work emerged.  Here's a peek at one of the lessons that served as the raw clay to shape young writers' minds.  All lessons were taught in New York City classrooms, but could be adapted to suit your own community and place.

Using Reflections of NYC Arts Movements, expose your classroom to poets writing about NYC so young writers can read how other New Yorkers have envisioned their city.  A great place to start is Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem."

And be sure to check out our POEM AS BIG AS NYC: LESSONS page for more great ideas!

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

Who can understand the clotted language of everyday American commerce: the memo, the corporation report, the business letter, the notice from the bank explaining its latest "simplified" statement? What member of an insurance or medical plan can decipher the brochure explaining his costs and benefits? What father or mother can put together a child's toy from the instructions on the box? Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important. The airline pilot who announces that he is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn't think of saying it may rain. The sentence is too simple—there must be something wrong with it.

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.

-An excerpt from William Zinsser's On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Melanie Maria Goodreaux is a playwright, poet, and native of New Orleans who has made her home in New York City since 1999. Her poetry and plays—including Saydee and Deelores, Walter. Bullets. And Binoculars, amd Ka-trina Who?!—have been performed at Yale University, the Lillian Theater in Los Angeles, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Chelsea Playhouse in New York City, and at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta. She is a teaching artist with Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Creative Theatrics, and the Manhattan New Music Project, teaching creative writing and drama in all the boroughs of New York City. This interview from the Digital Resource Center on T&W's Website includes a lesson idea for the classroom using poetry from Tish Benson's book Wild Like That: Good Stuff Smelling Strong.