Teachers & Writers Collaborative
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| Motto | Teaching creative writing; educating the imagination |
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| Formation | 1967 |
| Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit |
| Purpose | Education |
| Headquarters | 520 Eighth Avenue, 20th floor, New York City |
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Director
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Amy Swauger |
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Staff
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3 |
| Website | twc.org |
Teachers & Writers Collaborative is a New York City-based organization that sends writers and other artists into schools. It was founded in 1967 by a group of writers and educators, including Herbert Kohl (the group's founding director),June Jordan, Muriel Rukeyser, Grace Paley, and Anne Sexton, who believed that writers could make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing.
A non-profit organization, T&W has brought writing residencies and professional development workshops to more than 760,000 students and 26,000 teachers in the New York tri-state region; at a current rate of 10,000 students per year. Over the years, they have published over 80 books on the practice of teaching creative writing. Their quarterly magazine was published continually from 1967 to 2014. T&W also sponsors an educational radio show, free after-school programs, and literacy initiatives.
The formation of Teachers & Writers Collaborative came out of the foment of the 1960s, and the founding writers' dissatisfaction with the rote methods of public school pedagogy. The spark for the organization came out of a series of lectures at Tufts University hosted by M.I.T. professor Jerrold R. Zacharias, an education reformer with ties to President Lyndon B. Johnson. (Teachers & Writers was formed with funds from the White House's Office of Science and Technology.)
Grace Paley summed up the T&W core philosophy:
T&W's first project was at Manhattan's P.S. 75, with workshops coordinated by Phillip Lopate. The project model led to similar Artists-in-the-Schools programs in all 50 states. Despite this success, T&W's programs led to pushback from public school faculty and administrators – it wasn't until 1971, through dedicated collaboration with their hosts, that Teachers & Writers became stable and accepted. In addition to Lopate and its founders, T&W's program and philosophy were shaped by writers like Rosellen Brown, Victor Hernández Cruz, Kenneth Koch, and Robert B. Silvers.
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