Teaching Writers Speak

Toronto Writing Project

Teaching Writers Speak is for educators, researchers, and creative folks like us who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large. We chat with teachers, professors, community educators, and researchers to better support one another as teachers of writing, our students as writers, and our work as scholars in the field of critical literacy. Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast produced by members of the Toronto Writing Project (www.torontowritingproject.com).

  1. 14. Burning Barbies and other lessons on happiness, writing, and critical literacy with Dr. Karleen Pendleton Jiménez

    2025-03-31

    14. Burning Barbies and other lessons on happiness, writing, and critical literacy with Dr. Karleen Pendleton Jiménez

    How can creative writing be used to humanize both teachers and students in our too-often rigid educational systems? Our guest in this episode, Dr. Karleen Pendleton Jiménez, engages in a deeply human conversation about happiness, writing, and the messiness of being a teacher and academic. We talk about what it means to centre joy in schools, how creative writing can be a tool for wellness and resistance, and why personal experience still matters in the age of AI. From burning Barbie dolls to zine-making and protest playlists, this episode is a celebration of teaching that dares to be honest, playful, and real. Karleen Pendleton Jiménez is a writer, filmmaker, scholar, and educator. She is cross appointed between the school of education and school of gender and social justice at Trent University in Peterborough Ontario. Her research investigates sociocultural influences on learning, and works with creative writing research methodologies.  Mentioned in this episode: -Nel Noddings Happiness in Education -Teaching to Transgress bell hooks -Teacher Man, Frank McCourt -Jeanette Winterson, 12 Bytes book on AI -Karleen’s film on CBC Gem Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh and Melissa Arasin. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    58 min
  2. 13. Anti-racist writing assessment ecologies with Dr. Asao Inoue

    2024-12-29

    13. Anti-racist writing assessment ecologies with Dr. Asao Inoue

    How can teachers create more equitable, more humane writing ecologies in their classrooms? Today on the show Mel and Celeste speak with Dr. Asao Inoue, professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University.  In this conversation we get into labour-based grading contracts, some of the inherent racist problems with a traditional grading framework, AI in relation to trust, colonialism, and classroom ecologies, as well as how to implement some of these ideas outside of a college context.  We build off of Dr. Inoue's scholarship in this book, Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies, which is definitely worth a read. Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large. This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh and Mel Arasin. Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Friesen. You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com

    51 min
  3. 12. We never fully arrive at "best" with Dr. Rob Simon

    2024-12-03

    12. We never fully arrive at "best" with Dr. Rob Simon

    How can challenging traditional teaching and research methods and embracing diverse student literacies transform English Language Arts education to be a more inclusive and empowering experience for teachers and learners? Dr. Rob Simon, our guest today, is an associate professor and Associate Chair, Student Experience, in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is also Academic Director of the Centre for Urban Schooling, Director of the Toronto Writing Project, and Principal Investigator of the Addressing Injustices research project. Dr. Simon came to teaching in a non-traditional way, working in San Francisco with the Delancey Street Foundation, a self-help rehab facility for people who were recovering from addiction and people who had come through the criminal justice system. Through partnerships with community organizations in the Bay Area, he helped start the Life Learning Academy and after school programs that helped children thrive, in and out of school systems that had marginalized them. This community and people centered collaborative work of reinventing school, alongside young people with different backgrounds from his own, still guides his work today. In this episode, Dr. Simon shares nuggets of wisdom on promising practices in teaching and research, and drawing upon learners’ rich literate lives to empower them in the classroom. His teaching and research focuses on Freirian critical literacy–reading the word to read the world and vice versa–and practitioner inquiry, which challenges research hierarchies by privileging teachers as knowledge creators and theorizers of their own teaching practice. Mentioned in this episode: “Without Comic Books, There Would Be No Me”: Teachers as Connoisseurs of Adolescents’ Literate Lives .... Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh and Melissa Arasin. Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Friesen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    1h 8m

  4. 2023-05-29

    11. Critical Self-Reflection and Teaching an LGBTQ+ Literature Course with Dr. Mollie Blackburn

    How can we as teachers, researchers, and activists  make ourselves visible and vulnerable on the page? And what happens when we disagree with the past versions of ourselves that we encounter once we’ve committed our choices to writing? These are some of the questions at the heart of our conversation with Dr. Mollie Blackburn. Mollie is a Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on literacy, language, and social change, with particular attention to LGBTQ+ youth and the teachers who serve them. Mollie’s also no stranger to Writing Projects like ours: She spent many years as an active member of the Philadelphia Writing Project, and she is a long-time member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), where she was recently recognized with its inaugural LGBTQ+ Advocacy and Leadership Award. In her most recent book, Moving across Differences: How Students Engage LGBTQ+ Themes in a High School Literature Class, Mollie offers an unflinching portrait of her teaching and advocacy work with young folks. Today she offers insights gleaned from that work over the years and tells us how she’s learned to embrace humility and vulnerability as she continues to think and write about the very human exchange that is teaching and learning. Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    28 min

  5. 2023-05-01

    10. Embracing Digital Multimodal Composing with Celeste Kirsh

    How do teachers navigate the boundaries between the physical world of the classroom and the virtual worlds of social media, podcasting, and digital composition? Celeste Kirsh, our guest today, has been tracing those boundaries for over ten years. Celeste is a middle school English and social studies teacher, as well as a blogger, podcaster, social media presence, and now a PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her name will be familiar to any of you who have tuned in to previous episodes of our show, since it’s her editing expertise and technical wizardry that deliver these conversations to your ears.  You might also know Celeste from her own podcast, Teaching Tomorrow, where she riffs on the future of learning with a range of top-notch guests. Today, Celeste shares what it’s like to be an educator who is teaching and learning out loud, in a public sphere, and how she continues to straddle the virtual world and the so-called “real” world as a teacher educator and emerging scholar of digital composition.  Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    54 min

  6. 2023-04-17

    9. Where 2SLGBTQ+ Research and Theatre Meet with Dr. Tara Goldstein

    How can we carve out our own creative pathways that honour but also push against the boundaries set by the institutions we serve? Dr. Tara Goldstein, our guest today, has spent an entire career paving her own roads as an academic, playwright, and LGBTQ+ activist. Currently serving as Vice Principal of New College at the University of Toronto, Tara’s decades-long career as a professor, teacher educator, and “performed ethnography” researcher has inspired legions of teachers and community educators to make things better for diverse youth and families.  Tara is also a writer, playwright, and director of Gailey Road Productions in Toronto. Her work sits at the crossroads where “research meets theatre and theatre meets research.” And truly that work is groundbreaking: performed ethnographies like Harriet’s House and Out At School have created space for conversations about gender, sexuality, and schooling where, for decades, there was only silence. Her latest project, The Love Booth and Other Plays, about the American Psychological Association’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, will premiere at Toronto Pride in June 2023.  Tara tours us through these and other landmark moments across her extraordinary career in our conversation today and tells us what’s on the horizon as she approaches another milestone: her retirement.  Connect with Tara on Twitter: @GaileyRoad Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    54 min

  7. 2023-04-03

    8. Children Writing Their Legacies with Land in Daniela Bascuñan’s Elementary Classroom

    How can teachers support young students to locate themselves in the world and contend with some of the more troubling legacies that shape our collective experiences? That is one question animating Daniela Bascuñan’s classroom teaching and her work as a teacher researcher. Daniela, our guest on this episode, has been teaching 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade elementary school in Toronto for over twenty-five years. Her name will be familiar to listeners of our little podcast: not only has she been a member of the Toronto Writing Project since its inception, but she planted vital seeds that helped bring this show to life.  Over the course of her career, Daniela’s been seeking ways to invite more of her students’ lives and experiences into the classroom as resources to make sense of how we relate to one another, our histories, and the land we stand on. And, as you’ll hear in our chat today, Daniela doesn’t hesitate to tackle some of the tougher issues that shape those relations, including military violence, residential schooling, and the broader legacies of settler colonialism. One of her goals as a teacher and a scholar is to challenge the “widely believed notion that very young children do not have the capacity to deconstruct [such] issues.”  You can find Daniela on Twitter @isPassingNotes Link to the article Daniela Bascuñán, Shawna M. Carroll, Mark Sinke & Jean-Paul Restoule (2022): Teaching as Trespass: Avoiding Places of Innocence, Equity & Excellence in Education, DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2021.1993112 Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.  This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    51 min

  8. 2023-03-20

    7. Sustaining an Adult Literacy Group with Will Edwards and Company

    What might an inviting, inclusive, and altogether more human approach to an adult literacy curriculum look and feel like? That’s a challenge that Dr. Will Edwards, one of our guests today, has been tackling over many years while teaching academic upgrading for adult learners at a community college in Toronto. As Will tells us, the academic upgrading program, like other adult literacy programs, invites people from across professional and geographical borders, with a range of experiences, histories, and interests, and attempts to funnel that diversity into standard and standardized performance tasks. Will bristled at this model’s “Come in, get educated, get the job, and get out” approach, so he began hosting a weekly reading and writing group where he and his students could slow down, get to know one another, and read and write about the experiences that make them human. That group has now been meeting for over a decade.  Today we’ll hear from some of that group’s founding members, including Will’s former students Ghofran, Karen, Pamela, and Shelley. Together they show us how a vulnerable, validating, and vitalizing community of learners can emerge from spaces that feel anything but. That means that this episode, like the group itself, is made up of many voices. Not only will we get to hear some of the prose and poetry that these folks have been writing together, but we’ll find out how and why they continue finding their way back to this community, even as their paths splinter and take different directions. Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large.   This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen.  You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.

    54 min
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About

Teaching Writers Speak is for educators, researchers, and creative folks like us who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large. We chat with teachers, professors, community educators, and researchers to better support one another as teachers of writing, our students as writers, and our work as scholars in the field of critical literacy. Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast produced by members of the Toronto Writing Project (www.torontowritingproject.com).

Information

  • Creator
    Toronto Writing Project
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Toronto Writing Project
  • Show Website
    Teaching Writers Speak