Author: Jane Hirshfield Summary: Prize-winning international poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield’s poetry speaks to the central issues of human existence: desire and loss, impermanence and beauty, and the many dimensions of our connection with others. She tells NWP why she writes.
Author: Charles Bazerman Summary: In this key reading, Bazerman describes the various things writers do with words, explaining how writers enter a complex and deepening engagement with a “symbolic environment” that coincides with the culture’s social, economic, and civic possibilities. He describes the many purposes, forms, and impacts of writing,...
Summary: A sojourn at home can be the occasion for lots of creativity around topics and projects of interest. For those with internet access and a suitable devices, there are also ways to connect with others as you write. Here are some of our favorites from our colleague organizations in...
Author: Ann Gardner Summary: With the goal of helping her students create free-form poetry that engages “the part of their brains that allows them to crawl into deep recesses of memory, shake hidden treasures awake, and write from their souls,” Ann Gardner illustrates each step of the writing process she...
Author: National Writing Project Summary: Rural Voices Radio, Volume III completes the Rural Voices Radio series with dispatches from four more Writing Project sites as part of the Rural Voices, Country Schools program. Each episode paints a portrait of a rural school, as told by the students and teachers themselves,...
Author: Mark Overmeyer Summary: In this short video, Mark Overmeyer, co-director of the Denver Writing Project and author of the book What Student Writing Teaches Us poses the question, “If you read student writing closely enough, will the student’s writing teach you what the student needs to know?” A thoughtful...
Author: Michelle Crotteau Summary: As teachers we often struggle to find ways to honor our students’ home dialects while still preparing them to take high-stakes writing tests requiring the use of Standard English. In this piece, the author describes her three-pronged approach within a Writing Strategies class for students who...
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...
Author: Michael Thompson Summary: In this award winning essay, Native American teacher and NWP site director Michael Thompson, reflects on his own practice and shares findings from research interviews he conducted with instructors in tribal college and university classrooms to learn how they approach literature and writing. In particular, he...
Author: Nnamdi Chukwuocha, Al Mills Summary: Poets and youth workers Al Mills and Nnamdi Chukwuocha answer the call to describe #WhyIWrite with a poem. The answer is inseparable from their community and the promise of the youth they work with.