We offer three different levels of educational and editorial opportunities: feel free to choose one or combine a couple.
Wave One: Conversation Starters
One-time talks about talking (Skype / In-Person).
Do you talk about social issues with your students? How about social media? Because today, more than ever, the world is social with its issues, and the lines between entertainment and politics, for instance, have been blurred. How do you approach or broach issues of politics, race, gender, or sexuality with students? What happens when they disagree with each other? How can we embrace a diversity of thought, while guiding opinions to deeper depths? This is where we live — the intersection of opposition — and we’re happy to join your class to talk about social issues (you name it), our organization (how and why we do what we do), being full-time writers (while working full-time), process (writing is rough because of the drafts), the age of the image (and the importance of digital and visual storytelling), or the importance of public engagement and the arts.
Wave Two: Crash Courses on Creative Writing
Discussing different dimensions of nonfiction writing.
When your students write essays, do they skew toward repertorial pieces or personal essays? In these single sessions, we discuss a variety of topics related to nonfiction writing, from the four primary forms (personal essay, repertorial writing, memoir, and opinion pieces) to process (brainstorming and the importance of beginning by hand). We also talk about being your own editor, how to get (responsibly) social with your media, and the key ingredients to a successful interview. Each lesson targets one aspect of creative writing. Depending on the grade level and unit focus, we can tailor-make these courses to fit your students’ needs, bringing to life the process of creative writing. If, for instance, your students are doing a unit on journalistic pieces, then invite us in during the research stage as well as the revision stage so we can field questions your students have throughout their process. The goal of these discussions is to help students understand the scaffolding behind each form of writing, and what tools they can utilize as they practice writing their own pieces.
Wave Three: One Issue at a Time
Take one of our past issues into your classroom.
That was the original slogan for our organization: one issue at a time. Our slogan has since changed to art in the space of social issues, but the original phrase is still the bedrock of our organization: we always focus on one social issue at a time, because we believe it’s important to slow down discussions. Each issue is highly-curated. We look for a wide-range of form and voice so that disparate perspectives interact, illuminating the complex edges of topics. We select our topics based on what we see as the most important issue of a given moment, and therefore, each issue is steeped in current events. In this wave, take one of our issues into your classroom. We select seven pieces from the issue that we published, include questions to get students thinking critically, and suggest ways for students to develop their own piece in relation to the issue, in response to one of the pieces, or even in imitation of one of the forms.