California Writing Project

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

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