Educator Innovator

Join colleagues from the Bay Area Writing Project as they learn alongside youth through a partnership with YRMedia called Teach YR. Through this partnership, teachers dig into the ways that youth media informs, mentors, and pairs with curricular design and the teaching of writing in their context and classrooms. This NWP Radio show will share inspirational media created by youth for public broadcast, explore the connected curriculum that has been created by teachers, and invite participation of students and teachers to be a part of an ongoing community of practice dedicated to bringing youth media beyond the margins.

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 wrote and illustrated A Normal Pig and her latest book is All Eyes on Ozzy! She was a James Marshall Fellow at the University of Connecticut, a Brown Handler Writer in Residence at the San Francisco Public Library, and an Ezra Jack Keats/Kerlan Memorial Fellow at the University of Minnesota. Born in Charlton, Massachusetts, K-Fai now lives in Lausanne, Switzerland. Heather Locke was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has been teaching for six years and currently teaches a fantastic group of second graders. As a kid, Heather had an amazing fifth-grade teacher who recognized her strengths and helped her grow. In high school, her volleyball coach and history teacher supported her through a difficult time. It is because of them that she achieved her childhood dream of supporting children through education.

Join us for a creative Write Out broadcast led by leaders of Outdoor Afro, the nation’s leading cutting edge network that celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature. Outdoor Afro leader Leandra Taylor and National Park Ranger Alanna Smith will lead us in creating and customizing journals to use for nature and historic writing. Don’t miss this event, just in time for Write Out and the National Day of Writing. Write Out (#writeout) is a free two-week event, led by the National Writing Project and the National Park Service. The event is organized as a series of online activities where educators, students, and the public are invited to explore national parks and other public spaces to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing. The theme of this year’s event is "Palettes, Storyboards, and Cadences" and will run from October 10-24, 2021 (which includes the National Day on Writing on October 20). Sign up now to receive links and information to support your planning and parti

Join us for a “behind the scenes” exclusive as we engage in the power of stories, storytelling and writing with partners from the Park For Every Classroom project. Park for Every Classroom (PEC) is a National Park Service partnership program that includes a network of educators, partners, and Park Rangers that collaborate to engage communities in place-based learning. In this special Write Out broadcast, we will learn about the work of PEC while we are also taken behind the scenes with Park Rangers who participate in both PEC and Write Out. We will get the inside scoop on how these Park Rangers selected their writing prompts for this year’s Ranger Sparks videos, and how they tie the prompts to the diverse stories of their parks. And, learn more about #writeout at: https://writeout.nwp.org

Carmen Oliver grew up in Manitoba, Canada, surrounded by lakes and prairie grass where she built tree forts, caught tadpoles, and sailed on homemade rafts. She is the author of the picture book series Bears Make the Best Buddies (Reading, Math, Writing, and Science) as well as the nonfiction picture book biography A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal, a Junior Library Guild spring 2019 pick. She’s also the author of the forthcoming picture books The Twilight Library and The Favio Chavez Story. Carmen’s work has been shortlisted for the Rainforest of Reading Award, The Writers’ League of Texas Awards and the CLEL Bell Picture Book Awards for Early Literacy. In 2014, she founded the Booking Biz, a boutique style agency that brings award-winning children’s authors and illustrators to schools, libraries, and special events. When she’s not writing, she loves gardening, cheering on her kids from the sidelines and blue-sky days. Carmen lives in Round Rock, TX with her fam

In this episode, NWP Radio talks with Cathy Fleischer and Sarah Hochstetler about Everyday Advocacy, the kind of advocacy that teachers can do as part of their regular teaching lives. Our guests will also discuss resources from the book, and the launch of a new website that was made possible by a National Writing Project seed grant and the collective efforts of colleagues who share this commitment to advocacy. More info at: https://lead.nwp.org/everyday-advocacy/

Varian Johnson is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, which won both Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor awards; The Great Greene Heist, an ALA Notable Children’s book and Kirkus Reviews Best Book; and the graphic novel Twins, illustrated by Shannon Wright, an NPR Best Book. Varian was born in Florence, South Carolina, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a BS in Civil Engineering. He later received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is honored to now be a member of the faculty. Varian lives outside of Austin, TX with his family. Kim Tate is a fifth-grade dual language teacher at International Prep Academy in Champaign, Illinois, where she is a member of her school improvement leadership team, as well as co-chair of her school’s equity committee. In addition to being a children’s fiction enthusiast, Kim is a 2021-2022 Teach Plus Illinois Policy Fello

Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. Felicia’s teaching career began in Chicago, where she served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a feminist webzine for high school students. Dr. Tonya Perry is a Professor and Director of the Red Mountain Writing Project. In 2000-2001, she was named Alabama Teacher of the Year and further awarded National Teacher of the Year Finalist. In 2012, she was named by colleagues and students the recipient of the UAB Teaching Excellence Award. On a national level, she serves as a member of the Research on Women in Education executive board affiliated with AERA, director of the NCTE Cultivating New Voices program, a member of the Beloved Community in the National Writing Project's Write Now

What is "rhetorical problem-solving" and what does it mean to "write rhetorically"? Listen to our interview with Jennifer Fletcher, professor of English at CSU Monterey Bay and the author of Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators. https://rhetoricalthinking.com https://www.stenhouse.com/content/writing-rhetorically

The original Declaration of Sentiments, the document outlining the rights that American women should be entitled to as citizens, emerged from the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in July 1848. Then in 2020, a group of women and girls in the Western, Central and the Finger Lakes regions of New York got together “to use pens and voices” to write a new declaration for the 21st century, which they shared for the first time at the 2021 Convention Days in Seneca Falls, NY in mid-July. Join us for this NWP Radio show where we hear from the authors of the now complete 2020 Youth Declaration of Sentiments, understand their journeys as writers and collaborators, and listen to their hopes and dreams for their 21st century document. For more information: https://yds2020.weebly.com/

Join the National Writing Project’s The Write Time with Kwame Mbalia, editor of Black Boy Joy, two additional contributors Varian Johnson and Julian Randall, and Washington, DC area teacher, Cosby Hunt. Black Boy Joy, released on August 3, is a book that celebrates the excellence of young Black males, their happiness, their voices, and their stories. We are excited to discuss the project with them on this episode.

Join NWP Radio for an interview with Poet t.l. sanders, a poet and performance professional based in Kansas City, MO. As a Prairie Lands Writing Project Teacher-Consultant, a Missouri Writing Project Network Teacher-Consultant, a member of the National Writing Project Writers Council, a current curriculum director, and former elementary, middle, and high school English teacher (with 16 years of teaching experience), Poet embraces the value of our shared stories. Whether he is public speaking, teaching, writing, or breathing, he has a passion for empowering people. This episode of NWP Radio includes a conversation of his upcoming film The kNew-Born, which premieres July 18 through August 1 during the #kcfringe2021 Virtual Festival. To learn more and find tickets for the film premiere please visit: https://www.poettlsanders.com/

Join the National Writing Project’s The Write Time with New York Times Best Selling author and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky. Rachel will be interviewed by Soñia Galaviz a 5th grade teacher and leader with the Boise State Writing Project. See the entire series at https://educatorinnovator.org/campaigns/the-write-time/

Equal access to quality writing education has been a longstanding challenge in the United States and not enough has been done to move the field forward in recent years. In this report, we at 826 National aim to bring writing education to the forefront of public, policy, and funding conversations by examining its current state and issuing a call to action to the field. In the summer and fall of 2020, we interviewed 19 writing education experts, including authors, researchers, and educators, about the current state of writing education in the United States. We distill their reflections on the benefits, challenges, and inequities of writing education, and then draw on those reflections to outline recommendations for the field. Learn more: https://826national.org/research/ 826 Digital: https://826digital.com Take the National Teacher Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScX9i7u_FBqET9CVq4hwAJqBkpWpwySvGjORqaVP9f1bTF72g/viewform Next Steps and Take Home Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive

Abdi Nor Iftin has been featured on various radio and TV stations sharing his life story of growing up in a country torn by civial war and immigrating to the United States in 2014. His new book Call Me American was released in 2018 and is a finalist for New England's Bookseller's Association book awards. Abdi is interviewed by author and educator Kate Kennedy. Kate taught writing at Portland High School, was the director of the Southern Maine Writing Project, and is the author of Skin, A Memoir and End Over End.

In this CoLab, co-author/editor Christopher R. Rogers will be joined by members of the Marginal Syllabus team for a conversation that starts with the editor’s introduction to the February 2021 edition of the journal Research in the Teaching of English. Written in the days prior to the 2020 presidential election, amidst dual public health and racial justice pandemics, the article’s brevity belies its provocative power. Reading the article now also offered the team a chance to reconnect with Christopher, himself a long-time Marginal Syllabus partner, for a conversation in which he reflected on social activism, art and poetry, his passion for literacy, and his formative experiences as a student and teacher. This article is the featured article for June 2021 in the LEARN: Marginal Syllabus and will be available throughout the month alongside a curated set of online annotations using Hypothes.is. Viewers are invited to watch the CoLab discussion, socially read the article alongside colleagues, and if interested,

Joseph Bruchac is a Nulhegan Abenaki citizen and a leader among his people. He is the author of more than 120 books for children and adults, including his best-selling series, Keepers of Earth: Native American Stories and Environment Activities for Children. Joseph is interviewed by Dr. Caitlin Johnson, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Dr. Johnson is an English teacher at Dakota High School in Fargo, North Dakota.

Do you love historical fiction? Teach American Literature? Are you a teacher-writer? Any of these would be a great reason to tune in to NWP Radio as we talk to Don Zancanella about the writing life, teaching and writing, and about his magnificent new novel Concord.

Chris Crutcher’s years as a teacher, then director, of a K-12 alternative school in Oakland, California through the nineteen-seventies, and his subsequent twenty-odd years as a therapist specializing in child abuse and neglect, inform his thirteen novels and two collections of short stories. Chris has received a number of coveted awards, from his high school designation as “Most Likely to Plagiarize” to the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. His favorites are his two Intellectual Freedom awards, one from the National Council for Teachers of English and the other from the National Coalition Against Censorship. Five of Crutcher’s books appeared on an American Library Association list of the 100 Best Books for Teens of the Twentieth Century (1999 to 2000). Chris is interviewed by Stephenie Eriksson, a National Board Certified Teacher, a teacher-consultant with the Ohio Writing Project, and a past-president of the Ohio Council of Teachers of English/Language Arts. For

In this CoLab, author Ebony Elizabeth Thomas is joined by colleagues Christina Cantrill, Joe Dillon, and Remi Kalir to discuss her article “‘We Always Talk About Race’: Navigating Race Talk Dilemmas in the Teaching of Literature” which was published in Research in the Teaching of English in May 2015. This article is the featured article for May 2021 in the LEARN: Marginal Syllabus and will be available throughout the month alongside a curated set of online annotations using Hypothes.is. Viewers are invited to listen to or watch the CoLab discussion, socially read the article alongside colleagues, and if interested, join the discussion. LEARN is a collaborative project of the National Writing Project (NWP), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Marginal Syllabus team, with the support of Hypothesis.