The Write for Your Life Institute is for teachers who want to build strong, connected communities of students who write with fluency, purpose and power.  While the challenges we face under COVID-19 and the need for virtual learning can strain our sense of connection, writing provides the means to build resiliency and deep relationship while fostering students’ literacy development, even in a virtual classroom.  This institute will help teachers build authentic and meaningful community by harnessing the power of student voice in writing.

Safe, predictable, relationship-rich environments and literacy learning create the conditions that students need in order to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.  Live or virtual, these environments for learning must foster identity safety, resilience, and empowerment to meet the needs of students as we continue to navigate the global pandemic and social unrest wrought from racial injustice. For teachers, these are times that call on us to respond to the crises of the moment and hear the voices of students as a source of power, hope and inspiration. Writing, taught well, provides a powerful means through which to nurture and support students in ways that integrate trauma-informed practices and literacy approaches in ways that are mutually reinforcing:  Writing can engage both our minds and heart, creating space for healing, connection and empowerment.  Powerful literacy teaching and learning can foster resilience and develop students’ capacity for complex social thinking, meaning making and problem-solving as a means to navigate the stress and uncertainties of living in these times.  The Institute will draw on a framework for integrating social emotional, culturally responsive, and literacy instructional practices that center students, their lives, and their voices to drive powerful writing.

The Institute will provide the foundations for teaching writing in ways that work well both live and virtually.  Teachers will engage in writing as part of the experience of the Institute and the learning-to-teach-writing process.  

Participating teachers will learn:

• how to create engaging, culturally responsive classroom environments for writing

• how to engage students in finding ideas and topics they care about

• how to foster culturally responsive and trauma-informed classroom culture to grow writers

• how to help students build fluency in their writing

• how to foster powerful relationships with and among students through writing—even in a virtual environment

• how to teach the writing process in a way that supports students and is aligned to standards

• how to assess student writing and provide effective formative assessment to foster growth

• how to help students write in ways that build voice, stamina and resiliency

• how to structure writing workshops to allow choice – and deep work with craft

• how to facilitate small group writing sessions

• how to confer with students in ways that foster growth and build writing skill

 We also invite participating teachers to “bring” students to parts of the Institute to participate in learning to write – and to provide small group practice for teachers.  Participating students (and teachers) will engage in lessons on writing, will have opportunities to practice their writing and they will engage with other students and teachers in a learning community.  Teachers will have the opportunity to engage in writing alongside their students and build relationships with them while developing their practice in the teaching of writing.  They will receive modeling, coaching and support in working directly with their own students to confer and lead small group writing sessions.  Teachers will leave with plans and tools to set up their classrooms (live and/or virtual) for the school year. 

Districts may also offer the opportunity for participating students to earn or retrieve credit for participation; please contact Institute staff to discuss how this can work in your district.

Registration fee is $350 per educator; students may attend for free.  Districts may register multiple educators through a Purchase Order.

Instructors for this course: 

Dr. Laura Schneider is national literacy consultant with more than 25 years’ experience as a teacher, researcher, consultant and author. She is skilled at working with educators and school leaders in racially diverse contexts to improve educational equity and achievement. She is the author of Literacy for a Better World: The Promise of Teaching in Diverse Classrooms, published by Teachers College Press. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraschneidervanderploeg/

Alissa Heikkila is a literacy consultant and curriculum developer with more than 12 years of experience in schools throughout Washington State. Mostly, she works alongside teachers and students through job-embedded professional development and inquiry-based instructional coaching. 

 Michael Kamin is a literacy consultant and secondary literacy specialist with more than 15 years of experience in diverse middle and high schools. He works with teachers and school leaders to develop agency in students and community in schools through coaching, lab site classrooms, curriculum development, and professional development.