SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

Category: Writers in the Schools

Introductions: Imagination into Ink, Part 2

Paired with images from May 26th, the second night of our 2016 WITS Year-End Readings, these are just a few of the extraordinary introductions our writers-in-residence have written for their students, giving us insight into how WITS students view the world, themselves, and their writing. WITS Writer Margot Case introduces Quinn Angelou-Lysaker and Stefania Escoz  Quinn’s writing came at […]

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Introductions: Imagination into Ink, Part 1

Paired with images from May 25th, the first night of our 2016 WITS Year-End Readings, these are just a few of the extraordinary introductions our writers-in-residence have written for their students, giving us insight into how WITS students view the world, themselves, and their writing. To get a glimpse inside these moving and collaborative relationships, read on! WITS Writer Laura […]

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WITS Voices: Imagination as a Seditious Act

By Aaron Counts, WITS Writer-in-Residence Each spring, schools in many districts around the country shift their focus from whatever learning is usually going on in classrooms to make room for standardized testing season. Here in Seattle, that test is the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium). It is a multi-subject test based on the Common Core State […]

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“Newer Skeletons,” by Gina Rangel-Gross

Newer Skeletons (Or, A Turn of Events I Never Would Have Anticipated But Am Not Complaining About) we are starting to see each other like x-rays. starting to carefully examine each other, (exciting) & ive been examining myself too. (powerful) i love this. how else could i learn so much about bodies without seeing every […]

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“Butterflies,” by Tyleah Armstrong

Butterflies Yesterday my name was dazzling diamond. Today my name is bright shiny star, soaring through the sky. Sometimes I am an empty house, a book with no pages. Strangers think my name is amusing charming rose. People don’t know I am silly princess, queen of art, dazzling mermaid, rough and tough. My real name […]

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“Henri Rousseau,” by Nadia Luke

Henri Rousseau On the forest floor, the trees growing with bananas and peaches. A flower in the distance is as pink as a sunset flying away and the light blue and gray sky is like a fan trying to blow its way out of trouble. I’m telling you there is more to this jungle than […]

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WITS Voices: All the Warm Night, Sleep in Moonlight

By Ann Teplick, WITS Writer-in-Residence   Sleep in a field of salmon peonies. A rooftop with saxophone jazz. A sand dune with peacocks. All the warm night, sleep by the creek with its burble, the sheep with its fleece of charcoal, the sister who whispers “Let’s launch the canoe.” All the warm night. As a […]

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“Bathing in India,” by Jemma Jacks

Bathing in India Before I was a citizen of this country, I was a citizen of the bucket. Staring at the water right under my nose. I don’t believe I can fit. Lifting me up, my mom tells me it is the only way, my feet dangling centimeters above the bubbly water. An orange bucket […]

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“In My Own Underwater World,” by Frida Santos

In My Own Underwater World  Sometimes I feel like a fish in a tank in the jungle – out of place, silent while everyone is roaring, squawking respected in their hidden languages and I just sit there in my own underwater world I feel ignored, these animals drink my world while I breathe it as […]

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Clare Hodgson Meeker, WITS Writer-in-Residence

WITS Voices: Writing Hero Stories with Third Graders

By Clare Hodgson Meeker, WITS Writer-in-Residence Don’t ask kids what they want to be when they grow up but what problems do they want to solve. ―Jaime Casap, Google Global Education Evangelist On my first day of a nine-week residency with third graders at Whittier Elementary, I gathered the students on a bright throw rug […]

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