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Culturally Responsive Writing Instruction: A Summer Writing Opportunity By Dr. Aileen Hower

One of the most rewarding experiences as a teacher educator and professional development coordinator has been coordinating and facilitating Summer Writing Institutes for Millersville University of Pennsylvania, one of the ten PASSHE Universities, alongside West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Since the summer of 2018, I have been planning these one-week intensive Writing Institutes, partially due to feeling so passionate about supporting teachers in their teaching of writing to their students, but also due to the strong feedback from graduate students about their interest in learning more about how to teach writing more effectively.

Previously, we’ve crafted Summer Writing Institutes around poetry, best practices in writing instruction, how to inspire reluctant writers, and even grammar (yes, grammar instruction). This past summer (2025), I felt called to combine the topics of Culturally Responsive Writing Instruction in light of all that is going on across the state of Pennsylvania. Millersville University, like West Chester, is located close to one of the 12 urban school districts, with most teachers across the middle of south-central Pennsylvania instructing students from a wide array of backgrounds, both culturally and socio-economically. Many teachers throughout the courses that I teach express wanting to know more about how to teach with cultural responsiveness in mind. Therefore, I felt that merging the two concepts: culturally responsive teaching and writing instruction would appeal to teachers. The response was positive!

Before we met for the one-week intensive, students in the course read Tricia Ebarvia’s Get Free: Antibias Literacy Instruction for Stronger Readers, Writers, and Thinkers (2023)text as well as Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr’s We’re Gonna Keep On Talking: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom (2023). Due to having 3 high school teachers enrolled in the course, I gave them the option to read Kay’s Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom (2020) instead. I find that the more opportunity for teachers to personalize the learning the more responsive they are to adopting some of the concepts they learn throughout the week into their teaching practices.

Being able to then hear from the speakers of the course texts was a huge benefit to the attendees. While not always possible, it is a great way to allow teachers (and presenters) to dig deeper into the concepts, as they have already prepared for the learning with the authors’ texts. Teachers also had the opportunity through the pre-Institutes writing assignments on the texts to think about how the information in the texts applied specifically to their teaching and students. They came prepared to ask in-depth questions and dig deeper than just a summary of the learning. Of course, we only had 2 hours with each speaker, but it was helpful to have the books already read before starting the conversation.

The format of the week includes time to collaborate in the room (and online in breakout rooms – the course is held multi-modally, meaning there are in-person and online students who attend. This has supported teachers’ attending in the summer and from further away. While I would still say that attending in person is the best (there are giveaways and food, as well as robust discussions and collaboration), feedback from online students has been positive as well, as sometimes the speakers are also online (helps in hearing from presenters regardless of their location (as well as budget)), which offers a more dynamic experience for the online attendees. Millersville University utilizes LiveStream technology, so when a speaker is present, we share the screen with online attendees and also have a camera on the speaker throughout their presentation. Online presenters (as well as attendees) can see and hear what’s going on in-person through the same technology.

We meet for more personalized learning each morning, learn from a keynote speaker for 2-hours in the morning, break for lunch and conversations, learn with a breakout speaker in the afternoon, and then have collaboration and work time afterwards until the end of the day. There is daily reflection built into the week, as well as the opportunity to work on an individualized final project while having access to colleagues (often from similar grade levels or districts) and the course instructor to guide this work.

One thing I greatly appreciate about all of the speakers who present during the week is how hands-on they plan their learning. For example, during Trisha Ebarvia’s presentation, teachers created a personal timeline to create a lens through which to view the information from the text and presentation. Ebarvia facilitated teachers’ reflection and also their critical view of what was present/absent in their timeline in tandem to the dominant and “more complete” narrative that texts read in school often communicate. Evarvia was also able to conduct hands-on simulations and share specific practices from the classroom, which was highly valued by the teachers who attended the Institute.

Likewise, Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr were able to be Keynote speakers later in the week. Teachers, again, greatly appreciated simulations, in person discussions with the authors/presenters/teachers who have had first-hand experience with this work in their classrooms, as well as Jennifer’s extensive list of culturally responsive texts to use in classrooms. This especially resonated with teachers and their final project was to update a series or lessons, a unit, an instructional time of the day (such as morning meeting), to include more texts that discuss topics and characters that better align with the students in their classrooms.

The whole week is populated with Keynote authors/presenters and then breakout presentations delivered by local teacher leaders. While it is always a draw to have national/internationally acclaimed speakers/presenters, it is such a powerful opportunity, especially for networking, for local teachers, especially those who are looking to have presentation experience, or to share their personal research/work with others. This past summer, two of our most powerful presentations were delivered by a local spoken word poet/author and by a local school district administrator.

I met Julian “Juelz” Davenport through my work with “nErD Camp PA” a few years ago. He visits school classrooms, mostly in the Harrisburg area to discuss writing and the importance of one’s story with students. I thought it would be a powerful experience for teachers to meet Juelz to hear how he has been inspiring students in central Pennsylvania to write. Juelz shared his story with teachers and got them to write about theirs. Then he transitioned to sharing ideas for how to inspire students to write. It was an inspiring and extremely authentic time of learning and vulnerability that really resonated with teachers as all of them had taught a Juelz; all of them want to inspire their students to write the way that Juelz has been able to inspire students in local schools.

Our other huge local success was inviting Dr. Danielle Miles, an Administrator in the School District of the City of York. Dr. Miles has presented previously, numerous times, at Millersville University, on CR-SE topics. On the last day of the week, I like to invite a speaker that might seem slightly off-topic (writing), that works to be inspiring to the teachers. Typically, the attendees are an incredibly inspiring group of educators to work with. They are either in a graduate program or taking a graduate course in the summer to learn in a specific area. As a teacher educator, I want to make sure that teachers know that this is admirable. I work to leave them with something that communicates my admiration for the work that they do (during the year as well as all of the other times). Dr. Miles was the key to closing out the week well. She presented on: Rest, Responsibility, and Revolution. She started by validating teachers’ experiences, took them through some powerful thought exercises, and encouraged them in the knowledge that the work they do and every time they encouraged students to tell their stories, they were doing critical work for the future. I’ve been planning this summer’s Writing Institute since last November. I learned that Mark Overmeyer published a new book on writing. I am working to build the week around the theme: When Writing Workshop Isn’t Working. It will be a wonderful Institute and teachers will grow in their confidence in teaching writing and possibly learn to enjoy teaching writing even more. But there was nothing more inspiring than learning about and with a group of educators who wanted to learn how to best engage and instruct their students.