In This Issue

Workshops
Poem as Big as the City
Fellowships
Books
Magazine
2020 Visions
Jobs

T&W Welcomes a New School Year and Old Friends

Dear Friends,

The start of each school year triggers a wide range of emotions and memories. I loved having fresh, new notebooks in which I was sure I would never make a mistake, and I was always anxious about meeting teachers who were new to me. The new-school-year anxiety never went away, but over time I began to view some teachers as friends (Merci, Mlle. Doreza!) while others inspired my life-long interest in literature, theater, and politics.

Memories are a big part of what connects the thousands of writers, teachers, and students who have been part of Teachers & Writers Collaborative over the last 41 years. Like old school friends, alumni of T&W programs formed bonds and share memories that have endured for years-even for decades.

To reconnect those who have been part of T&W since 1967, we have initiated the T&W Alumni Network. Individuals who have played a role in T&W’s history will be able to stay engaged in the work of the organization, and find old friends and colleagues, through e-mail communication, mailings, and events. Become part of the Alumni Network and let us know when and how you want to be involved. Sign up on our website at www.twc.org/about/tw-alumni-network.

You can also reconnect with T&W on Tuesday, October 28, when our 2020 Visions series celebrates the re-issue of T&W Board member Phillip Lopate’s Being with Children. The book is part of The New Press’ series of re-issues of classics in progressive education, edited by Herbert Kohl, T&W’s founding director and current Board member. Kohl and Lopate will both speak at the event.

Being with Children is Lopate’s account of the years he spent as a T&W writer-in-residence at an elementary school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the 1970s. Hailed by the New York Times as “a wise and tender portrait of a small society,” Lopate’s book explores the horrible and beautiful aspects of being with young people for hours a day, and explains why teachers persist in staying with the public schools and trying to make them into places where young people can flower.

The Being with Children celebration will begin at 6:30. For more information on this and other events in the 2020 Visions series, go to www.twc.org/events.

Happy new school year!

Best wishes,

Amy Swauger, Director

WORKSHOPS

T&W Starts Year with New Contract for Creative Writing in Schools

The New York City Department of Education (DoE) has awarded a multi-year Student Support Services contract to Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Under this contract, T&W will provide in-school and after-school programming for students, as well as professional development for teachers.

Interested schools should contact us early to schedule a residency with one of the more than 50 professionally published writers on T&W’s roster. These writers work creatively with teachers to help them and their students accomplish their goals.

T&W writers offer the vocabulary, literature, and writing skills associated with multiple genres—poetry, fiction, journalism, the graphic novel, memoir writing, playwriting, or the college application essay. The writers guide students through all stages of the writing process, and help students to learn that they can participate in literature as both readers and writers. For residencies lasting 10 days or more, T&W publishes an attractive anthology of student work and provides a culminating celebration, such as a reading by students for the school community.

In addition to residencies in the genres of their choice, the first schools that contract a residency with T&W this fall will have the opportunity to include one extra program day at no additional cost. This extra day will be used to engage students in writing poetry about their lives growing up in New York City as part of T&W’s citywide A Poem as Big as the City project. (See following story or go to www.twc.org/events/poem-as-big-as-the-city. )

Call 212-691-6590 or e-mail workshops@twc.org to schedule a residency and to discuss how to incorporate in-school professional development into each residency day.

A POEM AS BIG AS THE CITY

Youth Write the First Lines of A Poem as Big as the City

New York is a roller coaster. Hold on tight. —Pury S., 14

Hum along to the song we all know:
“Stand clear of the closing doors.” —Jarei M., 17

Early in June, at a poetry workshop in northern Manhattan’s Washington Heights, a group of young New Yorkers including Pury S. and Jarei M. became the first participants in Teachers & Writers Collaborative’s new project, A Poem as Big as the City. The initiative brings professional writers to community sites and schools to lead young people in writing poetry about growing up in New York City. T&W will feature the best poetry from these workshops in a book and at public readings by the youth poets and well-known New York writers.

T&W held the first A Poem as Big as the City workshops in partnership with Groundswell, a Brooklyn-based public arts organization commissioned by the Mayor’s Office to create a mural for a pedestrian tunnel in Washington Heights. Belle Benfield, the Groundswell artist leading the youth team creating the mural, decided that poetry would play a prominent role.

“There was no set theme for the mural, so I chose to use poetry as a way to open the team and the community to thinking about New York City and their neighborhood in a lyrical, poetic way so that we could generate interesting imagery for the mural that moved beyond the usual rainbows and peace signs that are found in murals,” Benfield said.

Benfield worked closely with T&W writers Sandra Maria Esteves and Jane LeCroy, both Washington Heights-based poets, who led workshops to develop themes central to the mural project and to A Poem as Big as the City.

“The Poem project is an exercise in both writing and community. It’s a large conversation with a large group of people. It’s filled with possibility, spontaneity, and surprise—a united piece made of hundreds of voices,” LeCroy said. “Like the mural project, the Poem has the potential to bring people together in an empowering way.”

The workshop in Washington Heights was the first of a series of summer workshops held in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. T&W writers worked with young people at sites including Historic Richmond Town, the Staten Island Museum, and more than a dozen public library branches. Sandra Payne, assistant director for education outreach at the New York Public Library, helped coordinate the partnership between T&W and the NYPL.

“The name of the project exudes the enthusiasm, the optimism, the possibilities of coming together as one New York City,” Payne said. “Young people have few opportunities to participate in citywide ventures that allow them to shine as thoughtful and creative individuals. It is not often that NYPL is involved with a citywide project that involves museums, schools, and community arts programs.”

T&W writer Melanie Maria Goodreaux developed an initial curriculum for the summer workshops for A Poem as Big as the City. The curriculum calls for the transformation of young people’s individual experiences into the poetic journey of a collective but singular character.

“The vision of the project requires that we see the Poem as a ‘character’ in and of itself,” Goodreaux said. “The Poem will be the main character. It will take on all the varied characteristics imagined by the young writers. The Poem will twist through New York City. It will run into a multitude of adventures and will thus be expressive of young people’s diverse cultural roots and their reflections on and assorted interpretations of the New York City experience.”

Goodreaux and T&W writers leading the initial workshops guided young people to emphasize the sensory details of their everyday experiences in the city’s neighborhoods. At a workshop at the New Utrecht Library Branch in Brooklyn, T&W writer Alisa Malinovich distributed one of her own poems as a model to help young people recognize the effect of emphasizing specific details in writing:

The Poem woke up to the sound of a neighbor’s feet
On creaking floorboards in a big red brick building
Just past Ocean Parkway on Cortelyou Road.

It got dressed to the rhythm of traffic
Rolling down East 9th Street, car horns beeping,
Stray dogs barking, an airplane headed for JFK overhead.

The Poem pushed an elevator button,
Walked its bike under a scaffolding,
Waved to the owner of a Russian specialty shop.

Malinovich’s poem also emphasizes transition, moving from the above excerpt to a bike ride through Prospect Park and a subway ride to Chinatown. This emphasis helps young people to recognize and explore the transitions that characterize daily life in the city.

In September, T&W will refine the project curriculum as needed ahead of fall workshops in schools and at the American Folk Art Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York Transit Museum, the Old Stone House, and other sites.

For more information about A Poem as Big as the City and to read work created during the summer workshops, go to www.twc.org/events/poem-as-big-as-the-city.

FELLOWSHIPS

Christina Olivares and Jenny Williams selected as 2008-2009 T&W Fellows

Teachers & Writers Collaborative has selected Christina Olivares and Jenny Williams as the 2008-2009 T&W Fellows. The T&W fellowship supports early-career writers and is funded with generous support from the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund in the New York Community Trust.

Olivares was chosen for the curriculum fellowship and will focus on developing lesson plans and other resource materials for classroom teachers and others who teach imaginative writing. Olivares is a poet, boxer, and youth advocate who lives in West Harlem. She is midway through the MFA program in poetry at Brooklyn College. Her poems explore the intersections between other and self, specifically looking at queerness, culture, and language. Her work has been published in nth zine, Rorschach Failure, the _Brooklyn Review, and the Acentos Literary Review.

Williams will work on Teachers & Writers magazine and the T&W website as the communication fellow. She has a BA in English and creative writing from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked at Berrett-Koehler Publishers in San Francisco before spending two and a half years traveling, working, and writing in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Central America. Williams currently freelances as a writer and development book editor. She has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and has been a news writers and editor for Ethical Traveler, a travel columnist for Gradspot, an abstracter for Brijit, and a regular contributor to the Matador Travel network. A selection of her writing appeared in the New York Times bestseller The Secret History of the American Empire, by John Perkins.

During the fellowship period (October 1 to May 31), the fellows receive a financial stipend, office space and other resources at T&W, and the opportunity to participate in aspects of the organization’s work in publishing and in providing creative writing programs for schools and community-based organizations. The fellows jointly curate T&W’s 2020 Visions reading series.

Application guidelines for the 2009-2010 T&W Fellowship Program will be posted on the T&W website (www.twc.org/about/tw-fellowships ) in March 2009. For more information about the fellowships, e-mail fellowship@twc.org.

BOOKS

Meet Dr. Alphabet

Meet Dr. Alphabet, aka Dave Morice, whose wonderfully inspired ways of teaching poetry writing are gathered from many years of teaching both in the classroom and in the community. A poet and artist himself, Morice has published three books with Teachers & Writers Collaborative: The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet: 104 Unusual Ways to Write Poetry in the Classroom and the Community, The Dictionary of Wordplay, and Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology. These books are an indispensable collection of imaginative and creative ideas for teachers, students, and writers of all ages.

Poetry Comics is an anthology of classic poems hilariously illustrated, as well as a brief history of poetry comics with a how-to section for everyone who wants to develop their own poetry comics. In the book’s preface, Morice describes the connection between comics and poetry, “My book is based on the idea that the poem-cartoon combination is quite natural. It evolves from the close relationship that words and pictures have always had. Poetry and cartoons are both art forms. Together, they can only enrich each other.”

Poetry Comics: A Literary Postcard Book, a collection of 25 humorous postcards, is also available from T&W, and Morice discusses the evolution of poetry comics in the summer 2008 issue of Teachers & Writers magazine.

Teachers looking for new and imaginative ways of teaching poetry should look no further than The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet. This book of inventive exercises, including exercises involving wordplay, games, puzzles, music, crafts, and much more, provides specific classroom ideas with illustrations, examples, and alternative methods. The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet is for anyone interested in utilizing new ways to write and teach imaginatively.

An essential reference for language lovers as well as writers and teachers, The Dictionary of Wordplay presents more than 1,200 wordplay forms that teachers can use to engender a love of language and to spark the imagination. Many of the forms relate specifically to poetry and prose writing, which can stimulate creative and imaginative writing. The Dictionary of Wordplay’s companion teaching manual is also available through T&W and offers exercises and examples for using wordplay in the classroom.

Order The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet, The Dictionary of Wordplay, Poetry Comics, Teachers & Writers magazine, and other titles from T&W’s current catalog of resources for classroom teachers and writers at www.twc.org/publications , or call 1-888-BOOKS-TW (1-888-266-5789).

MAGAZINE

Comics in the Classroom

The summer 2008 issue of Teachers & Writers magazine takes a look at how a growing body of work has established comics as a literary form in its own right, supported and welcomed by a growing number of teachers, librarians, and administrators. This special issue explores how comics and graphic novels can strengthen writing skills and boost literacy in classrooms from kindergarten to college and beyond. Included are a variety of classroom comics-making exercises; interviews with cartoonist Ben Katchor and with Toon Books publisher Françoise Mouly; and articles by cartoonists, educators, cartoonist-educators, and others showing how the form can be a gift to teachers and students alike.

To read an article from the summer issue by Michael Bitz, founder of the Comic Book Project, go to www.twc.org/assets/39-4_Bitz.pdf.

2020 VISIONS

Fall Readings at Teachers & Writers Collaborative

After a summer break, the 2020 Visions reading series at Teachers & Writers Collaborative will be back in September. Join us for food and drinks, conversation, and the words and voices of poets, novelists, and nonfiction writers. Doors open at 6:30, and the programs begin at 7:00. Unless otherwise indicated, 2020 Visions events are free and open to the public.

Upcoming authors include:

• September 12—Michael Dumanis, Martha Southgate, and Brian Kalkbrenner
• September 15—The Shifting Poetry Landscape, a panel discussion with Robert Casper, Rebecca Wolff, Dante Micheaux, and Kate Gale; followed by a reading with Matthea Harvey and Kurt Brown
• September 26—Phillis Levin, V.V. Ganeshananthan, and Solmaz Sharif
• October 7—John Matteson (free for Princeton Association of New York City members, $10 for nonmembers)
• October 10—Mark Statman and Pablo Medina
• October 28—Phillip Lopate and Herb Kohl
• November 7—Richard Wertime and Asali Solomon
• November 21—Mark Doty and James Allen Hall
• December 5—Christopher Bursk and Tayari Jones

Biographical notes on the authors can be found at www.twc.org/events.

2020 Visions readings are held at T&W’s Center for Imaginative Writing, 520 Eighth Avenue (between 36th and 37th Streets), 20th floor. For updates on upcoming events and directions to T&W, e-mail events@twc.org , call 212-691-6590, or go to the T&W website: www.twc.org/events.

If you are unable to attend readings at T&W, you can listen to podcasts from the 2020 Visions series at www.twc.org/resources/2020-visions.

JOBS

Fall 2008 Volunteer/Intership Opportunity

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) provides and advocates for literary arts education by supporting writers and teachers in developing and implementing strategies to enhance students’ interest in and love of literature and writing. T&W disseminates models for literary arts education to local, national, and international audiences and showcases both new and established writers via publications and literary events.

T&W has an opening for an unpaid intern or volunteer from September-December 2008.

Working a minimum of 10 hours per week, the intern/volunteer will:

• Review teaching diaries kept by writers who lead creative writing residencies for T&W, catalog the diaries (e.g., by age of students, genre taught) to make the lessons and strategies included in the diaries easily accessible to others, and enter information about the lessons/strategies into a database.
• Develop a Web-based clearinghouse of information about writers-in-the-schools programs in New York State.

To Apply send a cover letter and résumé to volunteer@twc.org or:

Amy Swauger
Teachers & Writers Collaborative
520 Eighth Ave., Ste. 2020
New York, NY 10018

For more information, e-mail volunteer@twc.org or call 212-691-6590.