The Celebration of Writing and Literacy is an annual convening of educators. This year's event was held Saturday, October 14, 2023, at the Penn Museum.
Our annual conference invites educators to explore possibilities for creating brave spaces in classrooms, schools, and communities. One of our goals is to make visible the ways in which brave spaces can foster dialogue, engagement, and civic action. Together, we will cultivate an environment of liberation that will inspire and energize us.
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, Associate Professor, College of Education, University of Illinois Chicago; Author of Cultivating Genius (2020) and Unearthing Joy (2023)
In this keynote, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad offers a unique, culturally, and historically responsive approach to cultivating genius and joy in education. This approach is essential for accelerating the growth of all students and uniquely youth of color, who have been traditionally underserved in learning standards, policies, and school practices. She will present her equity framework, called the HILL Model, to help educators develop students’ histories, identities, literacies, and liberation. The HILL Model consists of five pursuits in teaching and learning:
Identity Development—Helping youth to make sense of who they are and others.
Skill Development—Helping youth to develop proficiencies across the content areas and state learning standards.
Intellectual Development—Helping youth gain new knowledge set into the context of the world.
Criticality—Helping youth name, understand, question, and disrupt oppression in the world.
Joy—Helping youth uplift beauty, aesthetics, truth, and personal space fulfillment within humanity.
Participants will learn and understand history and policy and personal and instructional factors that justify the need and purpose for culturally and historically responsive education. Educators will be encouraged and motivated to be more inclusive of their teaching of these five collective pursuits while learning the importance of integrating cultural, racial, linguistic, and historical responsiveness into their learning goals, lesson plans, and the texts they use to teach. Additionally, participants will see sample lesson/unit plans across grade levels, moving theory into action.
Matt Kay, Teacher, Science Leadership Academy, School District of Philadelphia; Author of Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom (2018), and We're Gonna Keep on Talking: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom (2023)
This session encourages teachers to reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses with communication, specifically as it impacts classroom discussions with students. In it, teachers work through strategies to develop communication skills that are too often thought of as fixed, working together to prepare themselves to lead powerful race conversations. We specifically work with how to enter and exit conversations thoughtfully, manage conflict, develop our conversational flexibility and agility, and determine which situations require which of these skills.
The Philadelphia Writing Project serves as the regional writing affiliate for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Art & Writing Awards are coordinated by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which seeks to identify and support exceptional writers and artists. Learn more about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and encourage writers and artists in grades 7-12 to submit their work!
The Philadelphia Writing Project is currently seeking volunteer jurors to participate in the 2024 Awards. Please email philadelphiawp@gmail.com if you are interested in serving as an evaluator of the brilliant writing created by local youth!
Congratulations to the 2023 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honorees! View the list of local winners.
Dr. Diane Waff, Dr. Jenn McLaughlin Cahill, Dr. Amy Stornaiuolo, Dr. Dina Portnoy, Barrett Rosser, Kemba Howard, and Trey Smith
Dr. Edward Epstein
Dr. Latisha Chisholm, Dr. Amenda Goll, and Dr. Michelle Robinson
Emily Hirshorn and Rorujorona Ferrell