Author: Stephanie West-Puckett Summary: Educator Stephanie West-Puckett describes her experience using collaboratively designed digital badges as a networked, contextual, and participatory form of writing assessment in a college first-year writing course. She describes how this “community-based assessment” supported diverse conceptions of writing and prompted critical discussion about what constitutes successful...
Summary: Imagine out-of-school learning spaces where museum and library educators create digital access for youth. The discussion focuses on students as makers rather than as consumers. Organizational partners discuss ways in which YOUmedia Network has impacted educators’ commitments to teen learning.
Author: Carole Edelsky Summary: This article is a great resource for study groups, inquiry communities, and professional learning of all types with a focus on English learners and writing. After introducing two pieces of “gorgeous” writing from fifth graders in a dual language classroom, Edelsky explains how this writing came...
Summary: This collection of readings is intended to inform the thinking and practice of teacher leaders and teacher researchers interested in addressing the racial gap in achievement by expanding their own knowledge base as they seek to enhance the academic performance of African American learners. These texts have supported the...
Author: JoBeth Allen and Lois Alexander Summary: This sample book chapter explains what teacher-led critical inquiry means in a social justice context. Useful in planning inquiry groups with a social justice focus, it also includes excellent content to help teachers to bring a social justice focus to their individual inquiry...
Authors: Marlene Carter, Norma Mota-Altman, and Faye Peitzman Summary: This monograph provides an in-depth look at the UCLA Writing Project’s approach to exploring two social justice concerns—matters of race and issues of homophobia—and the design of two multiyear study groups that engage the learning community at the site. The authors...
Author: Heather Bruce Summary: Bruce explains how revision can be taught as a tool to critique unjust texts. She writes, “We must …speak back to those who would take our power from us and continue a legacy of damage to our students.” Reading this piece could spark powerful conversations about...
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: Anne Dobie Summary: Site leaders working in rural areas, especially for the first time, will want to read this piece that frames what it means to be a rural teacher, including some of the challenges teachers face in this context and implications for writing project institutes. Visiting and living...
Author: Art Peterson and Kathy Schultz Summary: Did you ever wonder about why certain students might choose silence? In this video and an accompanying article about her work, Kathy Schultz urges educators to inquire into the meaning of silence while also finding strategies to allow silent students to communicate. Watching...