Nwp Radio

Can making and tinkering help us manage an uncertain return to school? We talk with Steve Fulton and Cindy Urbanski, both of the UNC Charlotte Writing Project, about their new book, Making Middle School: Cultivating Critical Literacy and Interdisciplinary Learning in Maker Spaces. The book grew out of the National Writing Project's Intersections project, which supported local Writing Project sites in partnering with local science and tech museums to co-develop programming.

For this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author Erin Stewart. Erin uses her background in journalism to research and write fiction based on real life and her debut novel is Scars Like Wings. Leading the conversation is Esther Theodore, an English Language Teacher at Stamford High in Connecticut and a teacher-leader with CWP-Fairfield. Esther is originally from Haiti and believes that every individual carries with them a story that enriches the educational journey, stretching it beyond the classroom.

The final episode of our seven-part series, The Nebraska Experience, explores an approach to teaching argument writing that involves students in researching local issues and presenting advocacy writing live to legislators at the state capitol. The project detailed here involved a semester-long collaboration between college and high-school students as part of the Husker Writers program, which sponsors secondary-university writing partnerships. High-school teacher Jessica Meyer and college professor Rachael Shah describe how they designed their collaborative unit and explain how the National Writing Project's College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) and place-based writing principles informed their pedagogy. The podcast highlights student voices by featuring excerpts of the students’ collaborative advocacy presentations on the cost of college and mental health resources, and it includes interviews with students about their experience writing for state senators. Jess Meyer and Rachael Shah reflect o

Hear about a new partnership between the National Park Service and the Nebraska Writing Project that is under development and moving toward a planned river float for area high school students to allow them to experience the Niobrara River in a way they may not have done in the past. The Nebraska Writing Project is planning writing experiences in the areas of the significant river ecology, paleontology, Native American history and use, the historical Fort Niobrara cavalry including buffalo soldiers, railroaders, homesteaders, and ranchers. More About Niobrara The Niobrara Scenic River lies in Cherry County, Nebraska, the largest county in Nebraska comprising an area of 6,009 square miles of which 49 square miles is water. Cherry County which abuts South Dakota on its northern border is Nebraska's largest county in land area and larger than the state of Connecticut, or the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Running through Cherry County is the Niobrara River, 568 miles long, from its head in Wyoming

For this episode of The Write Time, we have the pleasure of visiting with award-winning author Adib Khorram. Adib is the author of Darius The Great is Not Okay and his next book, Darius The Great Deserves Better, will be released August 25, 2020. Leading the discussion will be Aram Kabodian, a longtime educator, the 2016 MCTE Middle School Teacher of the Year, and a Red Cedar Writing Project teacher-leader.

Part five of The Nebraska Experience gives an outline of the initial work between the Nebraska Writing Project and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and examines the rich place-based teaching that occurred in this partnership. Our guests describe how they developed the paleontological, geological, and early history of the plains stories from this park into a series of workshops designed for teachers. The goal of this partnership was to create place-based workshops which: immersed teachers directly in the experience of the park, provided writing experiences that both enriched the park experience and were recreatable in the classroom, and met the teacher as a writer and an educator. Teacher-participants join the podcast to share how the workshop series evolved and impacted them as place-based writers and educators. Guests Diana Weis, 5th Grade Teacher, Millard Cather Elementary School Alvis Mar, Lead Park Ranger, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument Jan Knispel, Teacher, Midplains Community College Tess Syk

This podcast—part four of a seven-part series—focuses on how the Prairie Visions Writing Workshop for students and teachers came about due to the wish of the Homestead National Monument of America’s National Park Service to bring a focused writing workshop to the monument location that would take advantage of the history and process of the Homestead Act of 1862. The workshop developed writing sessions that brought students to experience the physical environment and ecology of the TallGrass Prairie, to see the artifacts and historical documents of the Homestead Visitors center, to feel the centeredness of earthing (being in contact with the earth), and mindfulness (being conscious of place, being in the moment). The emphasis on place-based writing engendered a greater appreciation in students of the history of the Homestead Act. The place of Homestead Monument allowed students to focus their writing experiences on the concept of home of the past, present, and future. Guests Susan Cook, Chief of Interpretation

This podcast focuses on Nebraska Writing Project co-director Melissa Legate’s pedagogical work to blend a place-based study of rural population decline with the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) focus on writing from multiple perspectives and nuanced claims. This project is offered as an example of the place-conscious principle of creating active citizens in the local community. Legate explains a “text set” developed from local newspapers on rural decline in her area and her 9th grade students’ response to the writing from that study. She goes on to describe the class follow-up final research project to investigate multiple points of view in a local issue, focusing on one student’s project on Willow Lake Recreation Area outside of town, and the many reasons for seasonal algae blooms there. Guests Dr. Robert Brooke, Director, Nebraska Writing Project Melissa Legate, Secondary English Teacher, Pierce Public Schools; Co-Director, Nebraska Writing Project

This podcast describes an 8-week joint class project between Nebraska Writing Project teacher-leader Cara Morgenson’s Thematic Issues course for level three English Language Learners at Lincoln High School, Dr. Robert Brooke’s college junior Uses of Literacy students, and Homestead National Monument of America. The project focused on immigration issues in Lincoln, Nebraska, grounded in the historical study of the Homestead Act as a “first wave” of immigration in Nebraska, Morgenson’s students’ first-person accounts of recent immigration to Lincoln, and cooperative work with four local agencies providing support for refugees: Center for People in Need, El Centro de las Americas, Asian Community and Cultural Center, and the Yazidi Cultural Center. The project is an example of the place-conscious educational principle of “spiraling out” from local to regional/national/international issues. Guests Dr. Robert Brooke, Director, Nebraska Writing Project Cara Morgenson, Doctoral Candidate, University of Nebraska-Lin

This podcast is the first of a seven-part series that introduces the big concepts of place-conscious education as used by Nebraska Writing Project teachers. Special guest Dr. Robert Brooke, director of the Nebraska Writing Project, situates listeners to place-conscious work in Nebraska in three stages: the Rural Institute program developed 1995-2007; the online Place-Conscious Institute and the suburban inquiry team 2008-2015; and the current community engagement/literacy programs of Husker Writers and the National Parks Service partnership. Then, four main concepts of place-conscious education are explained: Active citizens as opposed to migratory education The 3-legged stool of education, community vitality, and environmental quality Spiraling out from local community to regional, national, international knowledge Watershed and commonwealth as the crucial web of interrelationships We finish with examples of two exemplar projects: the Henderson/Bradshaw school consolidation project; and the Greater Omaha s

In this episode of The Write Time we are honored to have Laurie Halse Anderson join us to discuss writing, learning, and life. She is the author of Speak, Prom, Twisted, Catalyst, Wintergirls, The Impossible Knife of Memory, and more. Laurie is interviewed by NWP teacher-leader Rebecca Marsick who has taught elementary, middle, and high school, and is currently a Secondary Literacy Coach for Westport Public Schools.

In this episode of The Write Time, Jarred Amato the co-founder of Project LIT is interviewed by Connecticut English teacher Sean Astle. Jarred himself is a high school English teacher in Nashville, TN and Sean Astle is an English teacher in Connecticut where he is studying how young adult literature can be used to improve the literacy practices of all readers and writers. Each episode of The Write Time provides writing prompts along with a little time to write to engage listeners.

Listen to this conversation between children's book authors and illustrators Shanda McCloskey, K-Fai Steele, Mika Song, and Ana Aranda along with Texas educator and NWP teacher-leader Katie McKay. Together, our guests will examine works-in-progress and talk about how they can support young writers in understanding authors’ craft.

About Our Guests Marie Lu is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Young Elites series as well as the blockbuster Legend series. She has also been an artist in the video game industry, but is now a full-time author living in Los Angeles. Rose Brock is an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University and a co-founder of the national literacy initiative, Guys Listen. She is also the editor of Hope Nation: Young Adult Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration and the author of Young Adult Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide. Amanda Haugen is a high school ELA teacher in Pensacola, Florida and a teacher-consultant with the Emerald Coast Writing Project.

In this episode of The Write Time we visit with Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King, Goodbye Days, and Rayne and Delilah's Midnite Matinee. Jeff is the recipient of the William C. Morris Award and his work has been selected as an ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults.Jeff is interviewed by Dr. Susan Densmore-James, an Associate Professor at the University of West Florida, the director of the Emerald Coast Writing Project at UWF, and is known as The Book Dealer for her work with literacy and Young Adult Literature.

National Writing Project teacher-leader Janelle Q. Bence interviews New York Times Best-selling author Erika Sánchez in our special NWP Radio series, The Write Time. Sánchez is the author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and a recent recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. Each episode of The Write Time includes writing prompts and time to write to engage listeners.

We are pleased to have Sandra Murphy and Mary Ann Smith join us for this episode of NWP Radio. They are the authors of a new book just in time for summer professional development, Writing to Make an Impact: Expanding the Vision of Writing in the Secondary Classroom. Joining Sandy and Mary Ann are two teachers who are featured in Writing to Make an Impact, Brooke Ann McWilliams, who teaches middle school in Purvis, Mississippi and Laury Fischer, a long-time high school teacher now teaching community college at Diablo Valley College in Contra Costa County in California.

NWP Radio, in partnership with the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield and Penguin Random House Books, has launched a special series called “The Write Time” where writing teachers from across the NWP Network interview young adult and children’s authors about their books, their composing processes, and writers’ craft. In this episode, we're pleased to host a discussion with author Matt de la Peña and NWP teacher-leader Tracey Flores. Matt de la Peña is a #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author. He has penned six critically acclaimed YA novels, including Mexican WhiteBoy and The Living, which was a Pura Belpré Author Honor Book. Matt’s picture book Love was a #1 New York Times bestseller, and Last Stop on Market Street was awarded a Newbery Medal. Matt lives in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Tracey T. Flores is an assistant professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Flores is a former classroom teacher, working for eight years alongside culturally an

NWP Radio, in partnership with the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield and Penguin Random House Books, has launched a special series called “The Write Time” where writing teachers from across the NWP Network interview young adult and children’s authors about their books, their composing processes, and writers’ craft. For this episode, our guests include Nic Stone, an Atlanta native and Spelman College graduate, and Connecticut educator Kim Herzog, a member of CWP-Fairfield. Nic Stone’s debut novel for young adults, Dear Martin, and her debut middle-grade novel, Clean Getaway, were both New York Times bestsellers. In this episode, Nic Stone and Kim Herzog are joined by Kristin Shultz, Penguin Random House, and hosts Tanya Baker from the National Writing Project and Bryan Ripley Crandall from CWP-Fairfield. You can watch the interview with Nic and Kim on the NWP YouTube channel.

We were so fortunate to have the one and only Gene Luen Yang with us to discuss his new graphic novel, Dragon Hoops. He was joined by Bryan Ripley Crandall, Director of CWP-Fairfield; Mark Crandall, Founder of Hoops4Hope; and teachers Abu Bility and William King. Kids are home. Teachers are home. Parents are home. We thought it would be a perfect opportunity to #StepForward with an incredible new young adult novel.