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Write Out is a free two-week annual celebration of writing, making, and sharing inspired by the great outdoors. It is a public invitation from the National Writing Project and the National Park Service to get out and create supported with a series of online activities, made especially to help educators, students, and families explore national parks and other public spaces. This year’s event is STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math)-Powered and will run October 9-23. STEAM-Powered Write Out will use notebooks and journals to capture inspirations, observations, and annotations, just like STEAM professionals do!
A science notebook is a tool to help you with your own work. What are some needs notebooks help their keepers meet? What can a notebook help YOU (and your students) do? Join I Was A Kidauthor/illustrator Karen Romano Young along with teachers and Park Rangers for this special Write Out event focused on making and using notebooks in STEAM. This event is open to live participation on October 11 and you can RSVP via the NWP Write Now Teacher Studio. A recording of this event will also be shared via NWP and #writeout social channels. October 11, 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT
This collection, curated for Write Out 2022, brings together a range of writing prompts, or "sparks," to prompt writing outside and in public places and spaces in your community. With a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) topics in particular, each resource includes a variety of links meant to support deep exploration of these topics, while the "spark" is intended to surface interests and connections. We invite you to experiment with these prompts and remix them to support your local context.
With the #writeout campaign this month, there will be a lot of interest in writing as part of the pursuit of learning science. Wondering why writing matters in science? Check out this resource at Teach Write Now.
If you are looking for some inspiration and hope, check out our interview with Rose Brock and James Ponti. Rose is the editor of Hope Wins, a collection of personal stories and essays by award-winning and bestselling artists from Matt de la Peña and Veera Hiranandani to Max Brallier and R.L. Stine writing about how hope always wins, even in the darkest of times. Rose is joined in this interview by bestselling middle-grades author and Hope Wins contributor James Ponti.
In a made-for-teachers episode we also interview Sonya Huber this month about her new book Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto. Written to address the vague and problematic advice given to writers to “find their voice,” Voice First recasts the term in the plural to give writers options, movement, and a way to understand the development of voice over time. Listen in as Sonya discusses her conception of voice, shares some favorite prompts for developing voice, and celebrates the range of a writer’s voices.
Set aside some time to join the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) from October 24-28 for Media Literacy Week. Share your classroom activities and resources or plan to participate using #MediaLitWk across all social media platforms.
What is Transformative Social and Emotional Learning (TSEL), and how does an understanding of it align with the how and why of literacy instruction? How do self awareness, relationships, identity, agency, and other components of TSEL contribute to a richer literary experience for both teachers and students? If you are interested in these questions, register today for this October 19 webinar with Deidre Farmbry. This free webinar will move from defining TSEL to analyzing how attention to its components creates an opportunity to enhance the spark for students developing their literary identities as readers, writers, thinkers, and speakers.
It’s not too early to put a late fall conference on your calendar. UC Irvine, The Write Center, and the National Writing Project present this conference, live and virtually, on December 8. Join to learn with Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, and Gholdy Muhammad and many other presenters. Check out the registration page for special prices for groups and Writing Project sites.
Over 4,500 teachers have joined the Write Now Teacher Studio where they have been trading tips, tricks, ideas, and strategies. If you haven’t, please join us there today! All teachers interested in teaching writing are welcome.
Wondering what you’ll find? Here are just a few highlights for October…
Check out a webinar about science notebooks from working scientists in I Was A Kid: A Science Notebook Project with Karen Romano Youngor explore the question of how young children learn to write with the Philadelphia Writing Project in Emergent Writing: Engaging Young Writers with Joy and Attention. Or, take a “deeper dive” into The Mindful Writing Workshop through a four-part workshop by Richard Koch (who wrote the book!) The dive starts October 5. Later in the month, the Greater Madison Writing Project will host a discussion of Writing for Peace, Justice, and Healing.
