Paige Boncher (MA ’17) teaches English and Spanish at Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, NJ and has published essays, fiction, and poetry in The Massachusetts Review, Confrontation, and other anthologies. She lives in Jersey City, NJ with her two kittens, Coco and Pepper.  Thanks to Paige for sharing her March publication in McSweeney’s. We’re guessing some of

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When I think about BLTN’s commitment to youth advocacy and activism through literacy, teacher and youth collaboration across and within difference, and inclusivity and socially transformative pedagogy, I could not imagine, given our mission, how we would not engage in discussions about anti-racist pedagogies. We cannot be activists and support our students’ activism if we

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Background Last summer we had the opportunity and privilege to meet with Bread Loaf professor Dr. April Baker-Bell as she presented on linguistic justice during a BLTN session. Her calls for “critical conscious-raising of linguistic justice” and for confronting systems of white supremacy in both language and society were catalysts for our collaborative unit for

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Bread Loaf Teacher Network fellows compose reflective reports at key moments in a year. At the close of summer, they reflect on their BLSE course learning and they propose collaborative plans for projects and exchanges in the year ahead. At mid-year, they share their learning from the first half of the year, often using that

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There is a piece of writing advice that floats around in my mind, the origin of which I no longer remember (if you do, will you let me know?). Paraphrased, it’s something like: “When writing for children, one should never ask, ‘What lesson do children need?’ Instead, one should ask, ‘What lesson do I need?’

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Jonathan, a second grader, approached the laptop where he could talk to me. He introduced himself and was excited to show me his red mask decorated with stickers. “This is my mask. I wrote my mom’s name on it because I am going to give it to her. But I heard my parents say they

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On Saturday, November 21, Lena Ashooh (NextGen – VT), Leah Sneed (NextGen – Louisville), and Faith Omosefe (NextGen – Lawrence) opened for Joy Harjo’s session at NCTE’s Annual Convention, ¡Confluencia! Lena, Leah, and Faith worked for months with Bread Loaf School of English faculty and acting ensemble member, Jonathan Fried, in a process paralleling Jonathan’s

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On February 20, 2021, the Youth Advisory Board of the BLTN Next Generation Leadership held a virtual writing retreat drawing youth and educator participants from Alaska to Kenya, with many sites in between. Our goal was to capture moments and insights from the remarkable and trying life of students and teachers during the pandemic. When

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Early in the morning on February 27, 2021 for attendees from all U.S. time zones, and early in the evening Pakistan time, over 70 educators gathered from across the farthest reaches BLTN, the Andover Bread Loaf Peace Literacy Network. Inspired by the 10th anniversary of Karachi-based The School of Writing (TSW), Director Mohsin Tejani (MA

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Editor’s Note: In Fall 2020, mid-pandemic, Gregory Booth of Sheridan High School in Ohio, and Sheilla Lupao of Rusinga School in Nairobi, Kenya enacted plans following the time-honored BLTN tradition of fostering meaning-making through written dialogue, scaffolding that dialogue from personal exchanges of perspective to more academic forms for thinking. What follows is a set of

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