About Writing

Teaching Revision as an Act of Voice and Agency

Author: Christopher Mazura, Jacqueline Rapant, and Mary Sawyer Summary: This article grew out of the National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP), “a collaborative inquiry into the teaching of source-based argument.” It documents an inquiry into the processes of collaborative response and revision in a twelfth grade...

Literacy in the Digital Age

Guests: Natalie Franzi, Steve Figurelli, Paul Oh, and Claire Rivero Summary: In this webinar representatives from the NWP, the Teaching Channel, and Student Achievement Partners discuss effective uses of digital literacy tools, arguing that our vision must evolve to incorporate a new approach to literacy instruction, one in which technology...

Why I Write: Scientist Timothy Ferris on Writing to Learn

Author: Timothy Ferris Summary: Ferris explains that he writes as a way to learn science and describes the vital role that science has played in changing the world for the better. He discusses how writing for general audiences can help scientists to “clarify their own thinking, by obliging them to...

Love Ties My Shoes: Long-term English Learners as Thoughtful Writers

Author: Lynn Jacobs Summary: Students in a high school English Language Development class writing a book? Lynn Jacobs’ story of her students success can inform teacher study groups and inspire professional development sessions. For details about the project, powerful student voices describing the process, and ties to professional literature that...

“Hey, Mom, I Forgive You”: Teaching the Forgiveness Poem

Author: Linda Christensen Summary: Linda Christensen, who has taught high school Language Arts for many years, builds a community of writers as her students write poetry about forgiving—or not forgiving. The author starts with her own story.

Linking Genre to Standards and Equity

Author: Tom Fox Summary: Here is an important article that offers a framework and looks at how genre studies can help writing teachers design meaningful and engaging writing instruction. Fox suggests that standards-based writing curricula do not go far enough when we only teach students about how various genres work....

Striking It Rich: Finding My Digital Story in Northern California

Author: Corey Harbaugh Summary: This short piece could be a useful conversation starter or reflective tool in an institute or workshop focused on narrative. Reflecting on his excitement about the allure of new digital storytelling tools, the author reveals his insight that the power of telling our stories and making...

Poet Laureate Kay Ryan: Poet as Teacher, Teacher as Poet

Author: Grant Faulkner Summary: U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan has honed the art of simplicity in both her teaching and her writing. Her writing instruction focused on “the miniature arena of the paragraph,” and her poems, which often use cliché in striking, unexpected ways, are both pithy and nuanced.

Hacking Traditional Schooling: The Dialogic Classroom and the Notion of Play

Author: Steve Fulton and Cynthia D. Urbanski Summary: In this excerpt from Making Middle School: Cultivating Critical Literacy and Interdisciplinary Learning in Maker Spaces, Steve Fulton and Cynthia D. Urbanski draw a connection between Freire’s understanding of emancipatory education and Vygotsky’s idea of learning through play, arguing that maker education...

Heart and Voice: A Digital Storytelling Journey

Author: Kerry Ballast Summary: Kerry Ballast’s essay tells the story of how she transformed her teaching and her relationship with her students and technology – doing what she knows best as a teacher of writing while, at the same time, learning from and with her tech-savvy students. Together they transform...