Educator Innovator

In the second of two NWP CoLabs with Katherine Schulten of the New York Times Learning Network, four fabulous National Writing Project teachers discuss how their students responded to the editorial contest-winning argument essays. The arguments are from Student Voice, a new collection of student writing published by Norton and edited by Schulten. This show is a treasure chest of compelling and relevant student writing and discussion from inspiring teachers.

Celebrate powerful student argument writing in this NWP Radio CoLab featuring contest-winning student arguments. Katherine Schulten—a former a high school English teacher, New York City Writing Project teacher-leader, and the editor of the New York Times Learning Network— collected one hundred essays that were winners or runners up in the New York Times Learning Network’s argument writing contest. They are published in Student Voice. Katherine talks with Tom Fox about her work at the New York Times Learning Network, the origins of the essays, and how they were selected for the book. Best of all, she reads selections that show students’ passion, reason, and style. This CoLab is the first of a two-part series. The second CoLab features Katherine talking with four NWP teachers.

Join teacher, author, and NWP Writers Council member Kim Culbertson, along with fellow educators, for a dive into 100-word stories. Kim will share how she has found short-form work a great test for herself as a writer and its applications for her work with students.

In 2014, in partnership with The Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley, we launched the NWP Archives Project to ensure preservation and accessibility of NWP organizational records, publications, and resources, including more than 100 oral history interviews from founding Writing Project site directors, scholars, teacher-leaders, and funders. Hear about the archives' grand opening and learn a little NWP history from NWP leaders past and present.

Candace Fleming is the versatile and acclaimed author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize honored The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of the Russian Empire; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns; the bestselling picture book, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; the Sibert-Award-winning Giant Squid; and the beloved Boxes for Katje. She contributed the chapter on Katharine of Aragon to Fatal Throne. Candace is interviewed by Ohio Writing Project (OWP) teacher-leader Megan Rodney. Megan is a former second- and third-grade teacher, and is currently the Elementary PD Lead with OWP. Watch this video and more from other amazing authors at: https://educatorinnovator.org/campaigns/the-write-time/

On this episode we will talk about why and how working educators should take a more active role in thinking about retirement funding. Listen in to a conversation about the relationship between underfunded pensions and school quality and climate. And learn about resources available if you want to learn more or get involved in the conversation in your school or district. For more info, visit: http://educatorinnovator.org/how-we-invest-connecting-pensions-and-thriving-schools

Join Writing Project colleagues and educators associated with the National Geographic Educator Network to learn about the Geo-Inquiry process developed to support students in developing the skills, knowledge, and tools of a geographer and provide pathways for investigating, understanding, and taking action through a geographic lens. We will hear from teachers who have explored geo-inquiry with their students, feature resources available to support this process in classrooms, online, as well as outside, and explore the potential for connecting across disciplines through writing and geography. Guests Jeff Dierking, Greater Kansas City Writing Project; English teacher and Curriculum Coordinator, Raytown School District Elaine Larson, Regional Director, Midwest; National Geographic Education Carrie Nobis, Red Cedar Writing Project, science teacher, Groves High School Rich Novack, Connecticut-Fairfield Writing Project, English teacher, Fairfield Warde High School

Mike Caulfield and NWP teacher-leaders using the SIFT curriculum approach have had their eyes out for electoral misinformation. See this wrap-up of Mike’s October look at electoral misinformation and find resources for better information for your students. Learn more and see resources at Write Now, our publication at Medium: https://writenow.nwp.org/media-literacy-week-and-election-2020-7b2affdf1077

Check out this NWP CoLab with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Program Director Marya Brennan and high school teacher Sean Krazit for an orientation to NaNoWriMo, tips and strategies for making it work in the classroom or online, and pointers to resource collections covering everything from curriculum ideas to approaches to assessment. Read more info and resources at: https://educatorinnovator.org/ready-set-go-write/

About the Guests in this Show Jacob Kramer grew up in Providence, RI and studied film-making and writing at Harvard. Like Noodlephant, he loves hunting for mushrooms, eating noodles, and organizing with friends in pursuit of justice. K-Fai Steele is an author-illustrator who grew up in a house built in the 1700s with a printing press her father bought from a magician. She illustrated Okapi Tale and Noodlephant, and wrote and illustrated A Normal Pig. Sheryl Block was a 4th grade and special education teacher, and currently serves as the Coordinator of Professional Learning with the Louisville Writing Project in Kentucky. For more amazing episodes of The Write Time, visit https://educatorinnovator.org/campaigns/the-write-time/

A writing marathon is an opportunity for writers to gather, write, walk, talk, explore, and grow through shared experience. It is a beloved practice of many Writing Project teachers, whether face-to-face or online, and has spread to classrooms and national parks across the country. Join Morehead Writing Project teachers and National Park Service colleagues for this discussion about the possibilities and details on how to design your own. This event was part of Write Out 2020, a partnership with the National Park Service. More info along with writing marathon resources can be found at https://writeout.nwp.org/writeout-writing-marathon/

In this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author/illustrator Jerry Craft and eighth-grade student, Dereje Tarrant. Dereje's favorite subjects include creative writing, Latin, art, and biology. He is also a professional actor and enjoys playing soccer, doing hip-hop dance, practicing piano, spray-painting murals, or working at his latest craft—DJ-ing. Jerry Craft is the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal winning author of the graphic novel, New Kid. His second graphic novel, Class Act, was published on October 6, 2020. Craft is also the creator of Mama’s Boyz, an award-winning comic strip which won the African American Literary Award five times. He is a cofounder of the Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

As schools work through reopening plans and teachers reframe curricula for hybrid learning and policy-makers talk of "learning loss," it might be easy to forget the impact of the pandemic on children's opportunity to play and to learn through play. Playworks, a national non-profit that helps schools maximize the potential of recess and play for children's social and emotional growth, immediately saw the challenge the pandemic would pose for schools, parks, playgrounds, and families, working over the summer to prepare reopening guides and to redo their games and challenges for online and distanced formats. In this CoLab we discuss the resulting resource bank that teachers and families can use to return play to the school day - even when that school day is on Zoom. Learn more and access resources at https://writenow.nwp.org/play-is-an-essential-a-playworks-colab-babdf6d2836

For years, award-winning National Geographic photographer Andrea Bruce traveled the world, documenting life in international conflict zones. Wherever she went, people asked her “what is democracy?” When she returned home, she wanted to make it possible for all of us to explore the question through the “Our Democracy” project. Created by Bruce, with the support of the National Geographic Society and PhotoWings, Our Democracy invites everyone in the U.S. to document their experience of local democracy in word, image, and video using NWP’s Writing Our Future platform. Learn more at https://writingourfuture.nwp.org/ourdemocracy

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 discuss Martin’s book, instructional strategies from the book, how he has developed as a teacher over the last 30 years, and teaching writing in general. Get the Book: https://www.heinemann.com/products/e10820.aspx

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 a rich collection of activities and models for creating community and fostering learning in open online environments. Autumm's concept of "intentionally equitable hospitality," a concept developed in an effort called Virtually Connecting, seemed to nicely frame their collection of activities. With support from OneHE, they have published the initial (and growing) collection at OneHE: Community Building Activities. In this CoLab, they introduce us to the collection and provide advice for creating strong learning communities i

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 leads 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. This Is My America is her debut novel. It explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park. Kim lives her best life in Oregon with her husband and two kids.

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 and get resources at: https://writenow.nwp.org/designing-for-connection-and-community-in-the-online-writing-classroom-a20648cafa25

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 of writing to build community, support inquiry, and convey sympathy.