About our workshops
IWT workshops are interactive, collaborative, and writing-rich. We don’t just talk about writing-based teaching; we read and write together, modeling how we might use writing practices with our students in the classroom. Workshops are designed in close consultation with administrators and teachers to ensure that they address teachers’ needs and priorities. Our goals are to help teachers meet outside assessment standards while also addressing the individual needs of students and to support teachers’ creative autonomy in the classroom.
Our workshops introduce methods that help students:
• engage in productive dialogue
• learn critical thinking skills
• develop academic writing skills
• experience the benefits of collaborative learning
• become reflective learners who appreciate multiple perspectives
• value the role of both persistence and failure in the learning process
Al-Quds Bard College of Arts and Sciences (Palestine)
American University in Bulgaria (Bulgaria)
American University of Afghanistan (Afghanistan)
American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyz Republic)
Ashesi University (Ghana)
Bard High School Early Colleges
BRAC University (Bangladesh)
Bard High School Early Colleges (multiple cities)
Benet Academy (Illinois)
Branford High School (Connecticut)
Brentwood School (California)
Central European University (Austria)
Choate Rosemary Hall (Connecticut)
City-As-School High School (New York)
Columbus Academy (Ohio)
DRS Yeshiva High School and SKA High School (New York)
Dalton School (New York)
Deerfield Academy (Massachusetts)
Emma Willard School (New York)
The Episcopal Academy (Pennsylvania)
Episcopal School of Dallas (Texas)
European Humanities University (Lithuania)
Fort Worth Country Day School (Texas)
Fountain Valley School of Colorado (Colorado)
The Frisch School (New Jersey)
Front Range Community College (Colorado)
Greenwich Academy (Connecticut)
Gulliver Prep (Florida)
Harding Academy (Tennessee)
Herbert H. Lehman High School (New York)
The Heschel School (New York)
Highline College (Washington)
The Hockaday School (Texas)
Hopkins School (Connecticut)
The Horace Mann School (New York)
‘Iolani School (Hawaii)
Irvington Middle School (New York)
Jesuit High School of Sacramento (California)
John Jay High School - Cross River (New York)
Kent Denver School (Colorado)
La Salle College High School (Pennsylvania)
Lincoln High School, Sioux Falls (South Dakota)
Lincoln School, Providence (Rhode Island)
The Lovett School (Georgia)
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics (New York)
Neighborhood Charter School: Harlem (New York)
Northfield Mount Hermon (Massachusetts)
Northwest Academy (Oregon)
Orange High School (New Jersey)
Parami University (Myanmar)
Pitzer College (California)
Poly Prep Country Day School (New York)
Pomfret School (Connecticut)
Princeton Day School (New Jersey)
Principia College (Illinois)
Queensbury High School (New York)
Ridgewood High School (New Jersey)
Saint Stephens and Saint Agnes School (Virginia)
School of Visual Arts (New York)
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois)
Sewickley Academy (Pennsylvania)
Smolny Beyond Borders (Germany)
St. John’s University (New York)
St. Michaels University School (Canada)
University School of Milwaukee (Wisconsin)
University School, Shaker Heights (Ohio)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Illinois)
Walnut Hill School for the Arts (Massachusetts)
Ward Melville Senior High School (New York)
The Waterford School (Utah)
Westchester Community College (New York)
Woodstock Union High School Middle School (Vermont)
Contact us about bringing IWT to your school
Please reach out to us at [email protected] or (845) 752-4516 to inquire about bringing a customized on-site workshop or professional development program to your school.
Some of the ways that we work with schools
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On-site WorkshopsOur foundational workshops (see below for a partial list) provide an introduction to IWT’s writing-based teaching strategies. They can be discipline-specific or multidisciplinary. On-site workshops can be one, two, or three days long, depending on their goals and scope. International on-site workshops are usually one week long.
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Online WorkshopsWe offer online workshops that model how IWT writing-based teaching practices can be effectively integrated into hybrid and online teaching. Online workshops include the introductory workshops listed below as well as more targeted workshops focusing on online and connected learning. Write to us to schedule a time to talk about your school's specific needs: [email protected]
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On-site Workshop SeriesFor schools interested in building a deeper familiarity with writing-based teaching methods, we design workshop sequences that progress from introductory workshops to more advanced workshops that might focus on revision strategies, discipline-specific writing-based teaching practices, or reading and responding to specific texts.
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Embedded Professional Development ProgramsIWT also works with schools and school districts to offer extended professional development (PD) programs. A PD program typically involves a scaffolded sequence of workshops offered over the course of a year or more. PD programs begin with a needs assessment and classroom observations to ensure that our workshops address teachers’ needs and goals.
Selected On-Site Workshops
Writing and Thinking
This foundational workshop introduces participants to IWT’s writing-based teaching practices, while giving participants an opportunity to reflect on how they approach their own writing and how they teach writing. The goal of the work is to create, nurture, and sustain a writing-based classroom. The workshop is purposely communal and collaborative: teachers read and write together, exchange ideas, and respond to one another’s work. Through these activities, teachers become more aware of the scaffolding behind the composing process and better perceive the roots of their students’ struggles to engage with texts and produce expressive writing. Together, we discover how writing generates equity, community, and responsibility within a classroom. Teachers of all subjects who want to understand how shared writing practices can generate rich thinking and learning are invited to participate.
Writing to Learn
This workshop is multidisciplinary: it will draw upon a variety of works that may include historical sources and literary and scientific texts. Writing to Learn introduces participants to IWT’s foundational writing-based teaching practices with a particular emphasis on their application to specific subject areas and disciplines. The central focus is modeling lively and collaborative ways to use writing to explore texts, pose questions, and scaffold discussions of complex concepts by connecting seemingly disparate sources. Working together, we consider how writing-to-learn practices can transform how our students navigate challenges, develop agency, and share in the joy of discovery.
Teaching the Multimodal Essay
Multimedia texts—video essays, podcasts, cultural reportage, and graphic journalism—are powerful mediums through which students can explore and reflect on the world around us. Through close reading and shared writing in response to a wide variety of sources, we will create cross-disciplinary essays that consider how digital and multimodal texts expand our understanding of what counts as literacy. This workshop will use hybrid tools to deepen engagement and help students recognize and harness their own diverse literacies. It seeks to redefine the traditional essay through hybrid narratives which communicate ideas and information while enhancing students’ engagement in the classroom led by their own voice and curiosity.
Writing and Thinking for Middle School Teachers
This foundational workshop introduces participants to IWT’s writing-based teaching practices, with a focus on how they can best serve middle school teachers and students. Workshops will explore the movement from idea to sentence, and from paragraph to essay, while simultaneously developing learning communities in the classroom. Through these activities, teachers become more aware of the scaffolding behind the writing process and better perceive the roots of their students’ struggles to produce clear and expressive writing. Together, we discover how writing promotes equity, community, and responsibility within a classroom. Middle school teachers of all subjects who want to understand how shared writing practices can generate rich thinking and learning are invited to participate.
Writing with AI
Generative AI has disrupted teaching and learning across disciplines. In this workshop, we will approach generative AI tools with intellectual curiosity as well as caution. How can generative AI be a powerful and playful partner in the classroom? We will write in collaboration with a range of AI tools and consider how to reimagine assignments and teaching strategies. Working together, we will develop approaches that help students to honor their own thinking while using AI thoughtfully, judiciously, and creatively.
The Quest in the Question: Crafting Prompts for Writing-Based Learning
Students can spot a question with a “right answer” from a mile away. At the same time, an entirely open-ended prompt can leave students unsure as to whether their responses matter. Between these poles exists a world of open-ended yet purposeful inquiry. In this workshop, we will respond to, reflect upon, and design “odd-angled” prompts that foster writing-based learning. Rather than inviting students to lead with argument or opinion, an odd-angled prompt guides students (and teachers) to write probingly and playfully, often drawing on the text itself for the terms of inquiry. During a time of curiosity and concern about AI’s influence upon students’ learning, we will consider how authoring our own questions can empower the work of education and self-education. This workshop will examine how odd-angled prompts can create generative uncertainty rather than quick answers and support risk-taking as learners engage with texts, language, and one another.
Thinking Historically through Writing
How can teachers help students see that history is relevant to them personally, that they operate within a historical context, and that they have the power and agency to make historical change? Participants will explore how writing-based teaching helps students to become more nuanced, critical readers of history, allowing them to discover a world that differs from the present and to appreciate different, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations of the past. The workshop will also grapple with how Generative AI is transforming the discipline and the teaching of history. Our focus will be primary sources, the “raw materials” of history. The workshop will model thoughtful, playful ways to work closely with primary sources as fascinating windows onto the past. We will also practice the skills of critical scrutiny that can help students use their best possible judgment to discern between authentic historical sources and the proliferation of AI-produced “historical” images. Finally, we will consider how teachers can lead transparent, constructive conversations about using AI in historical research and learning.
Writing to Learn in the STEM Disciplines
This workshop introduces writing-to-learn strategies that help students develop their understanding of complex ideas in science and mathematics. In STEM classes, writing is most often used to assess what students know (or don’t know) on tests, lab reports, and assignments. By contrast, this workshop focuses on using writing as a tool for constructing knowledge. It introduces writing practices that help students find points of entry into challenging texts and concepts, interrogate their understanding when it is still fuzzy, tentative, or mistaken, and revise their thinking. Working together, participants write in response to playful and exploratory prompts that build classroom community and approach science for what it is: open-ended, experimental, and collaborative.
Revolutionary Grammar
Everyone—inside and outside the academic community—has an opinion about grammar. Parents, CEOs, and, of course, teachers worry that students graduate from high school and college without understanding the rules of grammar. But in the age of Grammarly, what does it mean to teach grammar? Using diverse literary texts and our own writing, we ask what grammar is, what it is for, how it contributes to the making of meaning and to creative expression, and how it can be taught using the fluid models for teaching writing that we value. Participants learn practical approaches to grammar that draw on students’ intuitions and habits as writers. This workshop is for teachers of English, composition, and grammar, and for any teacher who addresses issues of grammar.
Reflective Writing as Process and Practice
Process writing, a cornerstone of IWT’s writing-based teaching, is an essential reflective practice. We make space for reflection at the end of most writing sequences, assessing how our initial thoughts have evolved by exploring them in writing and by hearing the writing of our peers. Reflection paves the way for us to approach the next learning experience with a better sense of how we make meaning; it sharpens critical thinking and normalizes struggle. Working across genres and disciplines, this workshop will investigate the principles and practices of metacognitive writing and focus on how to make process writing integral to our teaching. In an era when AI writing tools can privilege results over process, we will discover what can happen when we make reflection central to our students’ learning.
FAQs
Which workshop should we start with?
In most cases, if teachers are new to IWT writing-based teaching methods, we suggest beginning with Writing and Thinking or Writing to Learn. Our discipline-specific workshops can also be tailored to first-time participants. See the workshop descriptions below or reach out to us by phone or email to discuss what option works best for you.
What is the difference between a one-, two- or three-day on-site workshop?
The main difference is the depth and range of practices that can be introduced. Because workshops model collaborative reading and writing practices, the pace is intentionally slow. When possible, we recommend beginning with a two-day workshop. One-day workshops typically begin with exploratory writing and writing-to-read strategies, whereas two- and three-day workshops might also explore the drafting and revision process. International on-site workshops are usually four or five days long.
What workshops do you offer online?
All our workshops can be offered both in person and online. Please contact us to inquire about workshops with a particular focus on online and hybrid teaching modalities.
Can I bring one of your Writer as Reader or July Weeklong Workshops to my school?
Yes! We are happy to discuss how we might adapt one of our Writer as Reader workshops or July Workshops for your faculty.