NWP Radio

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 online environments that can focus on "making assignments."

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 country and has served as a program director and workshop facilitator with Voices UnBroken, and as a teaching artist with Split This Rock, poetryN.O.W., and The American Poetry Museum. Throughout her work, Iloh has remained engaged with the communities she works and lives in by mentoring young people creatively within public school classrooms, athletic programs, and writing workshops. For past episodes of other author visits, visit The Write Time archive.

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 implications for teaching writing.

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 Williams (MS), and Ben Woodcock (MI). Related Resources Blogs that discuss particular practices referenced in the video: "Building A HyFlex Community" "Conference Grading 3.0" "Classroom Badges" Deanna's Google Slideshow

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, and hyper-flexible teaching. Related Resources Hyperdocs (core website) Cult of Pedagogy Interview: How Hyperdocs Can Transform Your Teaching In Covid Teaching Limbo? Check Out Hyperdocs, Jeremy's Middleweb article

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 time co-designing together. Our Guests Sandra Hogue Aram Kim Kyle Lukoff K-Fai Steele Gordon C. James

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 Michelle Falter is a former middle and high school English teacher and a Red Clay Writing Project (Athens, GA) teacher-consultant. Michelle co-edited the book Teaching Outside the Box but Inside the Standards with Bob Fecho, Xiaoli Hong, and fellow RCWP teacher-consultants, which was published with NWP and Teachers College Press. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English education at North Carolina State University. Chandra Alston is a former high school English teacher. Currently, she is an assistant professor of Literacy, Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation focusing specifically on writing instruction at North Carolina State University. Crystal Chen Lee is a former high school English teacher. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English education and director of The Literacy and Community Initiative at North Carolina State University.

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 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 on what they have learned about facilitating local issue writing for audiences beyond the classroom. Guests Jessica Meyer, English Teacher, Lincoln North Star High School Dr. Rachael Shah, Assistant Professor of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Adam Morfeld, Nebraska State Senator for UNL/North Star District Students in Meyer’s composition class and Shah’s preservice education class

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 to its mouth on the Missouri in the state of Nebraska. Seventy-six miles of the Niobrara have been designated a National Scenic River. The Niobrara National Scenic River will be the third jewel in the crown of National Park Service/Nebraska Writing Project Partnerships. Guests Susan Cook, Chief of Interpretation and Resource Management; Program Manager for Interpretation, Education and Volunteers, Niobrara National Scenic River Bobbie Roshone, Niobrara National Scenic River Jan Knispel, Adjunct Professor, Midplains Community College

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 Sykes, Henry Doorly Zoo School, Papillon Brenda Larabee, 10-12 Teacher, Stuart High School

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; Program Manager for Interpretation, Education, and Volunteers, Niobrara National Scenic River Jan Knispel, Retired Valentine High School, Current Midplains Community College Ramon Mangual PhD, Supervisory National Park Service Ranger, Manhattan Sites Diana Weis, 5th Grade Teacher, Millard Cather Elementary School

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