California Writing Project

How do we nurture confident writers from their very first scribbles?

Join us at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day for Marci Haas’s session: Write from the Start: The Importance of Early Writing Instruction

With Universal Transitional Kindergarten instituted throughout California, focusing on writing instruction from the start is imperative. A look at the Preschool Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations, the State Standards, Language Development, and emergent writing skills will help us to understand the skills and strategies that need to be developed in these early years. Participants will practice (and write about) developmentally appropriate strategies to advance the learning of our "littlest writers" and lay a strong foundation.

Come be inspired to write from the start.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

This Thursday, CWP’s Pre-Convention Day kicks off the day before the California Association of Teachers of English 2026 Convention Weekend at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport — and we’ll close with a powerful, interactive supersession led by UCLA Writing Project Fellows Daniel Buccieri & Kate Rowley:

World-Building on the Page: Youth Platforms, Autoethnography, and Civic Imagination

This interactive supersession explores how authentic student writing can serve as both resistance and vision-building. We'll engage in collaborative freedom dreaming, using historical mentor texts like the Black Panthers' 10-point program to move from individual grievances to collective platforms and action plans for more equitable futures. Then we'll examine autoethnography as a powerful tool for reclaiming narratives in an age of AI and media monopolies, grounding our civic visions in students' lived experiences and personal truths.

What if authentic student writing could be both resistance and vision-building? Come imagine, write, and build more just futures on the page and beyond.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

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What shifts when we see ourselves not just as teachers of writing—but as writers who teach?

Join us at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day for Kim Athans’s session: Filling Up Our Glitter Jars in the National Writing Project

In this session, participants will explore the transformative nature of the NWP Summer Institute on writing pedagogy and their philosophies on teaching writing. We will share best practices, discuss the dichotomy of a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches, and do some writing ourselves! This work is based upon sabbatical research in the SMWP and an article under the same title that will be submitted to CA English in the spring.

Come write, reflect, and refill your glitter jar.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

⏳ We’re ONE WEEK away from CWP’s Pre-Convention Day at California Association of Teachers of English (CATE)2026 — and it’s not too late to register!

Join us on Thursday, March 5 at the LAX Hilton Hotel for a full day of inspiration and practical strategies for teaching writing across all grade levels.

We’ll begin with a morning keynote from Nicole Mirra, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education and Faculty Director of the Teacher Education Program at University of California, Los Angeles, on cultivating civic thriving through literacy.

Participants can choose from a wide range of morning and afternoon workshops spanning:
✨ Early writing
✨ Creative approaches with magical realism and poetry
✨ Ethical AI
✨ Civic agency
✨ Information literacy

We’ll close with an interactive supersession led by UCLA Writing Project Fellows Daniel Buccieri & Kate Rowley, exploring autoethnography, historical mentor texts, and world-building on the page.

Register today to connect, create, and imagine new possibilities for teaching writing.

👉 Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

What if a simple poetic structure could build confidence and creativity for every writer?

Join us at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day for Jackie Smith’s session:
The Powerful Pantoum: Imitating Patterns in Poetry

In this hands-on poetry session we will think about our personal response to poetry and then move into crafting a pantoum, a poetic form that uses pattern and repetition to create rhythm and meaning. No poetry experience required--just curiosity and a willingness to play with words.

Jackie will also share ideas for adapting this engaging form for K–5 classrooms, making poetry accessible, joyful, and powerful for writers of all ages.

Come discover how structure can spark imagination and how repetition can deepen meaning.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

What happens when we teach students to hold multiple truths at once?

Join us at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day for Mike Tinoco’s session: Voicing Multiple Truths from the Heart

In this interactive workshop, we will explore a powerful writing exercise that centers empathy, facilitates understanding, and fosters peace. Drawing from the civil rights movement and Nonviolent Communication, participants will read an exemplar “Poem of Two Voices” about a specific moment in recent history, followed by writing their own poem. When we move beyond either-or thinking, dissolve the illusion of separateness, and help our students to connect with the hearts of people involved in a conflict, we model how to embody and sustain peace.

Come write, reflect, and explore how poetry can become a bridge across difference.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

In an age of AI, how do we help students believe their voices are better than a bot?

Join us at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day for Taiesha Fowler’s session: Better than a Bot: Teaching Students to Value their Voice

This session will demonstrate how to leverage artificial intelligence as a tool to support teaching young writers rather than replacing the critical thinking and perseverance required throughout the writing process. Drawing on teacher research conducted as part of the California Writing Project's Composing and Computing Collaborative, the presenter will share lesson plans and authentic student work at the high school, middle school, and elementary levels. Participants will leave with strategies to integrate AI in ways that build writing stamina, problem-solving skills, and ownership of their craft.

Come explore how we can harness technology while reminding students: their ideas matter, their thinking matters, and their voices are irreplaceable.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

What happens when we take our writing beyond classroom walls and into the natural world?

At CWP’s Pre-Convention Day Janis Jones and Wendy Schramm’s will lead a session: From the Forest to the Shores: Turning Passion into Action

Writing in the out-of-doors has multiple benefits for students. Contemplative immersion in nature increases engagement and mitigates negative feelings such as anxiety and depression. Making connections in and with the environment also creates opportunities for civic engagement. Join Janis and Wendy as they explore ideas for creative expression and write in a variety of forms that will inspire our students—and all of us—to action.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

What if source use felt empowering instead of intimidating for our students?

This collaborative workshop at CWP’s Pre-Convention Day explores how we can help students build scholarly compositions while strengthening their writerly voices.

Authorship & Information Literacy: Demystifying Source Use to Empower Students

Kimberly Turner-Shukis and Francesca Astiazaran will share ways in which they encourage students to find their writerly voices through the building of scholarly compositions. First, one will introduce her “proof package” model, which encourages students to evaluate and incorporate different kinds of evidence as support. Then, the other will discuss the lens of advocacy as one way to approach audience and highlight the meaningful connection between audience and source selection and use. Participants will then collaborate with each other to apply and practice the approaches. Participants will leave the workshop with several ways that they can adapt the workshop concepts into their own praxis as teachers and writers.

Come rethink research, reclaim authorship, and empower student voices.

Register and learn more: www.cateweb.org

Congratulations to CSUN Writing Project's own Co-Director, Xochitl Bentley, whose new book, Helping Students Become Climate Stewards: Storytelling for Environmental Advocacy and Problem-Solving, was released last week. https://xochitlbentley.com/

Join the book club conversation with Xochitl on Tuesday, November 10th, on Zoom. And feel free to share this information with interested colleagues.
Register now: https://csun.zoom.us/meeting/register/d7XoB0tqTXKAreo2XKbs8A #/registration

Xochitl Bentley (she/her) has been a secondary ELA educator for thirteen years in the greater Los Angeles area. She is a certified California Naturalist, a certified California Environmental Educator, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

✨ The Gift of Gratitude ✨
This month in NWP's Write Now Teacher Studio, let's celebrate gratitude as an ongoing practice that strengthens community and purpose.💛

https://studio.nwp.org/