Proud To Infuse @artandwriting Publication in This Summer's Young Adult Literacy Labs! Best of the Best! #NWP

For the last four years, teachers in the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University and I have helped score the Scholastic Awards for young writers and artists. I've been fortunate enough to delve into portfolios, while some of my colleagues dip into poetry, short fiction, and even script writing. We send the regional winners to national and then several months later the champions are announced. To thank us, we are given a box of student publications which represent the best of the best and they are incredible models.

This summer, as part of our poetry, young adult novel, Project Citizen, Tedx Talk, and script writing labs we are using the Scholastic publication as exemplars of what students can do if they pay attention to the world around them and set their pens to notebooks and their ideas to keyboards. It truly is a remarkable class set to have and coupled with our poetry collection, young adult novels, newspapers and other literacy texts, our attendees are getting plenty of ideas for their own composing.

In year's past, I've used the Scholastic publication in my graduate courses to model what is possible when students are given the freedom to compose in a wide variety of genres. I realized this spring, however, that the book would be great for our summer programs.

Ah, but the artwork they also publish is out of this world and if I can one day have my greatest wish, we'll offer Young Adult Literacy Labs that include visual compositions: paintings, collage, drawing, etc. To me, it is all art and that is what writing is - communicating to others the stories of our lives.