The Cabin's WRITERS IN THE SCHOOLS (WITS) program is one of its most significant. The program places professional writers into school classrooms and community settings to engage students in the power and pleasure of reading and writing.

In a semester or year-long residency, the program serves children and young adults in traditional classrooms, after-school programs, migrant camps, juvenile detention centers, teen-parent centers, alternative programs, and other community settings, allowing students time to discover how writing is essential to their lives. Since initiating WITS in 1997, our residencies have served thousands of students and teachers across Idaho.

The goals of The Cabin’s program are to improve the writing of students and to help classroom teachers broaden and deepen their methods for teaching writing. The WITS pedagogy has been evaluated across the country. Our own program has been evaluated quantitatively by WestEd in Los Angeles, a contractor for the National Endowment for the Arts, and qualitatively by educational consultant Michael Sikes, Ph.D. Student writing skills increased an average of 20 percent in the WestEd analysis. Qualitatively, students reported more engagement and pleasure with writing, but also more involvement generally with school and school activities.

WITS has become a template for other arts organizations and a national model for serving hard-to-reach audiences. In 2000 and again in 2002, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded our Writers in the Schools program the largest NEA grant ever made to any organization in Idaho. In 2006, The Cabin was named a recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

A WITS Residency
The WITS day in a classroom is typically the best-attended day of the week. A typical residency places a professional writer in a school or community setting for 25 weeks. Youth range from elementary through high school ages. The WITS writer is there to teach not only the students but to provide collaborative support for teachers who want to expand their own writing experience and develop their skills in teaching writing. An essential element of the WITS process is for the teacher to work closely enough with the writer that he or she learns critical skills that remain after the residency ends.

We know that for students to improve their writing, they must first come to enjoy the process. Given encouragement, students use their imaginations to investigate the world around them. As adventurers in language, they come to discover that writing is a powerful tool.

WITS instructors begin each session with stories, songs, poems, questions, pictures, sounds, objects or ideas. This pre-writing exercise frequently surprises and excites the students, evoking memories from the past or glimpses into the future. The writer may ask the students to smell cinnamon or a ripe pineapple, to listen to the sound of a rain stick or wind chimes, or perhaps to "feel" jazz. In this way, writing becomes a multi-sensory process, developing skills of observation, interpretation, communication, and creative expression, skills that are vital to academic and social success.

Each week the WITS instructors engage students in activities designed to help them write with more clarity, confidence and creativity. They build a relationship with each young writer, responding to his or her work regularly. Throughout the school year, the WITS instructor becomes an integral part of the school community, and each WITS residency ends with a celebration that includes public readings and a published an anthology of selected student work.

 

What are the qualifications of WITS instructors?

WITS instructors receive annual training on how to plan and teach WITS-developed lessons. They also receive training in classroom management and an understanding of curriculum standards for arts and humanities. In addition, instructors collaborate with classroom teachers for professional development in teaching writing.

The writers who work in WITS classrooms represent Idaho's best: Margaret Aho, Guisela Bahruth, Paul Berg, Malia Collins, Sharon Hanson, Alan Heathcock, Nick Hershenow, Catherine Jones, Jeff Jones, Josephine Jones, Meghan Kenny, Nicole LeFavour, Dawn Ludwin, Matthew Moorman, Diane Raptosh, Lisa Sanchez, Gino Sky, Leslie Smith, Laura Stavoe, Joyce Steiner, Danny Stewart, Kerri Webster and Norman Weinstein, to name a few. They've published dozens of books among them and hundreds of poems, essays and stories.

 

What kind of student is helped by having a WITS instructor?

WITS instructors help the reluctant writer by engaging them in compelling lessons and by teaching to a variety of learning styles. They help the gifted writer by recognizing talent, providing challenges, and encouraging further exploration of personal potential. They help the student who needs remediation by giving one-on-one feedback, and building on strengths. They help all students by giving them the opportunity to write about their lives and discover the power of their own voices.

Is there a set curriculum?

The WITS curriculum is designed to address academic achievement standards through a unique and proven process. The curriculum offers a “living” process that responds to the needs and progress of the students for each site. The key to each residency is the instructor’s ability to introduce young writers to the tools and the creative process as experienced by professionals. Therefore, each WITS instructor develops a course for each site, and no two residencies look exactly alike. Students can expect to work on poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, and classroom teachers can expect the WITS writer to cover fundamentals such as use of figurative language, sensory description, musical devices, voice, point of view, etc. Students will also go through the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revision, editing, publication) many times throughout the year.

How can my school/child have a WITS instructor in the classroom?

Contact The Cabin at 331-8000, or email us at info@TheCabinIdaho.org.