NWP Radio

About the Guests in this Show Jacob Kramer grew up in Providence, RI and studied film-making and writing at Harvard. Like Noodlephant , he loves hunting for mushrooms, eating noodles, and organizing with friends in pursuit of justice. 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 illustrated Okapi Tale a...

Engage students in not only their imaginations, but also in research, in visual literacy, in their community and its history, and in oral story traditions. This rich genre has been around for as long as people have been telling stories and is a great way to explore just what it means to be human. We're thrilled to feature four outstanding youth from KC Storytellers , a project led by the Greater K...

A writing marathon is an opportunity for writers to gather, write, walk, talk, explore, and grow through shared experience. It is a beloved practice of many Writing Project teachers, whether face-to-face or online, and has spread to classrooms and national parks across the country. Join Morehead Writing Project teachers and National Park Service colleagues for this discussion about the possibiliti...

In this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author/illustrator Jerry Craft and eighth-grade student, Dereje Tarrant. Dereje's favorite subjects include creative writing, Latin, art, and biology. He is also a professional actor and enjoys playing soccer, doing hip-hop dance, practicing piano, spray-painting murals, or working at his latest craft—DJ-ing. Jerry Craft is the New York Times bestse...

As schools work through reopening plans and teachers reframe curricula for hybrid learning and policy-makers talk of "learning loss," it might be easy to forget the impact of the pandemic on children's opportunity to play and to learn through play. Playworks , a national non-profit that helps schools maximize the potential of recess and play for children's social and emotional growth, immediately...

For years, award-winning National Geographic photographer Andrea Bruce traveled the world, documenting life in international conflict zones. Wherever she went, people asked her “what is democracy?” When she returned home, she wanted to make it possible for all of us to explore the question through the Our Democracy Project. Created by Bruce, with the support of the National Geographic Society and...

Martin Brandt is a high-school English teacher in San Jose, CA and a teacher-consultant with the San Jose Area Writing Project , as well as the author of Between the Commas: Sentence Instruction That Builds Confident Writers (and Writing Teachers) . In this episode we'll discuss Martin's book, instructional strategies from the book, his development as a teacher over the last 30 years, and teaching...

The educator-founders of Equity Unbound , Maha Bali , of the American University in Cairo, Egypt; Catherine Cronin of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education in Ireland; and Mia Zamora , director of the Kean University Writing Project; saw the need to assist their fellow faculty in practices for equity-focused open learning. Working with another collea...

Our guests Sadaf Kahn, English Supervisor and IB Teacher at TNS Beaconhouse in Pakistan, and Bryn Orum, co-director of the Greater Madison Writing Project (GMWP), discuss how they have used GMWP’s Rise Up and Write curriculum in schools and summer camps from Madison, Wisconsin, to Lahore, Pakistan. Hear stories of young people around the world using writing to effect change in the places they live...

For many teachers working to figure out remote or socially distanced teaching, two of the biggest challenges this school year are creating trusting, mutual connections with their students and forming productive classroom student/peer communities, especially supportive writing communities. Those twin challenges are at the heart of this CoLab with educators Anna Smith, Matthew Johnson, and Kim Jaxon...

We are honored to feature three debut Penguin Random House authors for a special back-to-school series of The Write Time. For our third and final episode of this mini-series, we will visit with author Kim Johnson and educator Synthia Shelby will be leading the discussion. Kim Johnson held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen. She's now a college administrator who maintain...

As part of a special back-to-school series of The Write Time, we visited with three debut Penguin Random House authors. For our second episode we visit with author Ger Duany and educator William King leads the discussion. Ger Duany is a survivor of the tragic exodus of an estimated 20,000 Sudanese children, the "Lost boys of Sudan," and has been appointed as UN Goodwill Ambassador. Born in the tow...

Writing Can Change Everything: Middle Level Kids Writing Themselves Into the World , edited by Shelbie Witte , is the latest from NCTE’s Principles In Practice series. Offering concrete illustrations of effective classroom practices based on NCTE research briefs and policy statements, books in this series demonstrate how principles come alive in practice. Listen to this episode of NWP Radio with S...

In this 20-minute interview Jessyca Mathews , recent Michigan Region 5 Teacher of the Year and a teacher-leader with the Red Cedar Writing Project, reflects on working with her students this past spring to surface "what really is necessary" to support their writing and learning.

Robert Rivera-Amezola is a Digital Literacy Teacher at Francis Scott Key Elementary and a teacher-leader with the Philadelphia Writing Project. In this 19-minute interview, Robert discusses insights that came from watching students chat with each other online during non-teacher directed time.

Beth Rimer is an Instructor of Composition at Miami Univeristy in Oxford, OH, and codirector of the Ohio Writing Project. Over the course of this interview, Beth describes the ways to build community and give students choices while also helping them learn to make choices. She also talks about the distinction between teaching writing and assigning writing, a particular challenge in remote and onlin...

We are honored to feature three debut Penguin Random House authors for a special back-to-school series of The Write Time. For our first episode we will visit with author Candice Iloh and educator Sharonica Nelson will be leading the discussion. Candice Iloh is a first generation Nigerian-American author and dancer based in Philadelphia, PA. Iloh has performed poetry and spoken word around the coun...

This CoLab features Writing Project colleagues—author-educator Ruth Devlin , artist-illustrator-educator Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez , and editor Amy Bauman—sharing their story of collaborating from a distance in the creation of a picture book:  Ants: Across, Around, and Through . In this episode they  share their process, the challenges and possibilities of collaborative work, and consider implication...

Join us for another NWP CoLab where we'll further explore online instruction, specifically how to make it manageable for both students and teachers. Our featured guest is Deanna Mascle , an Instructor of English at Morehead State University in Kentucky, and the director of the Morehead Writing Project. Also joining the discussion are middle/high-school educators David Lopez (CA), Katherine William...

It's a document—likely, but not necessarily, a Google Doc—that has hyperlinks. Simple, right? But that simple definition doesn't explain why there is so much buzz about them. Perhaps there's more to it. In this 29-minute episode, Jeremy Hyler , middle school teacher, member of the Chippewa River Writing Project , and Hyperdoc fan, explains why he finds the Hyperdoc a useful tool for online, remote...

About Beyond Storytime In April 2020, with school buildings closed for shelter-in-place, NWP Writers Council members, teachers, and children’s book authors and illustrators came together to rethink the stand-alone storytime and the traditional “author visit.” The Beyond Storytime CoLab was launched from this initial conversation and in each episode we dig into one of aspect of the work and spend t...

How can middle and high school English Language Arts (ELA) teachers work towards becoming anti-racist educators? Michelle Falter, Chandra Alston, and Crystal Chen Lee, former English teachers and current ELA teacher educators at North Carolina State University, share actionable steps and curated resources that work particularly well for middle and high school ELA teachers. About Our Guests Michell...

In this short NWP Radio episode, CSUWP Teacher-Consultant Bud Hunt , now a library administrator, describes how libraries can assist (and want to assist) teachers in the school year ahead.

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 si...

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 eve...