In an age of generative AI, writing matters more than ever.This book examines how educators can support meaningful writing instruction amid rapid technological change by drawing on more than 50 years of National Writing Project (NWP) research and practice. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence as a threat, the authors position writing as a deeply human act of thinking, meaning-making, and civic participation—one that must be taught intentionally at every grade level and across disciplines.The text is organized around core principles of effective instruction and reframes an essential question for modern classrooms: How do we cultivate confident writers when AI tools can draft and summarize at the click of a button? Through vivid classroom portraits and analyses of current literacy research, the authors demonstrate how agency is built when students are positioned as critical decision-makers and designers of their own work, rather than passive technology users.Writing Still Matters translates longstanding NWP principles—including teacher leadership and inquiry—for a field being reshaped by AI. It serves as a practical resource for K–12 teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders committed to preserving the human dimension of writing.Key Insights for Educators:Timely Response to AI Anxiety: Provides an authoritative, calm response to urgent literacy questions without relying on fearmongering.Grounded in NWP Research: Leverages 5 decades of classroom-based evidence from the National Writing Project, one of the most trusted organizations in writing education.Focus on Writer Agency: Moves beyond "how-to" tool adoption to prioritize student identity, curiosity, and ethical reasoning.Practical Instructional Frameworks: Includes user-friendly classroom examples, design principles, and inquiry models that teachers can implement immediately.Broad Grade and Disciplinary Reach: Offers strategies applicable for K–12 teachers across English-language arts, social studies, and media studies.

In an age of generative AI, writing matters more than ever.This book examines how educators can support meaningful writing instruction amid rapid technological change by drawing on more than 50 years of National Writing Project (NWP) research and practice. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence as a threat, the authors position writing as a deeply human act of thinking, meaning-making, and civic participation—one that must be taught intentionally at every grade level and across disciplines.The text is organized around core principles of effective instruction and reframes an essential question for modern classrooms: How do we cultivate confident writers when AI tools can draft and summarize at the click of a button? Through vivid classroom portraits and analyses of current literacy research, the authors demonstrate how agency is built when students are positioned as critical decision-makers and designers of their own work, rather than passive technology users.Writing Still Matters translates longstanding NWP principles—including teacher leadership and inquiry—for a field being reshaped by AI. It serves as a practical resource for K–12 teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders committed to preserving the human dimension of writing.Key Insights for Educators:Timely Response to AI Anxiety: Provides an authoritative, calm response to urgent literacy questions without relying on fearmongering.Grounded in NWP Research: Leverages 5 decades of classroom-based evidence from the National Writing Project, one of the most trusted organizations in writing education.Focus on Writer Agency: Moves beyond "how-to" tool adoption to prioritize student identity, curiosity, and ethical reasoning.Practical Instructional Frameworks: Includes user-friendly classroom examples, design principles, and inquiry models that teachers can implement immediately.Broad Grade and Disciplinary Reach: Offers strategies applicable for K–12 teachers across English-language arts, social studies, and media studies.

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will find:

Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide

By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will find:

Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide

By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.

In an age of generative AI, writing matters more than ever.This book examines how educators can support meaningful writing instruction amid rapid technological change by drawing on more than 50 years of National Writing Project (NWP) research and practice. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence as a threat, the authors position writing as a deeply human act of thinking, meaning-making, and civic participation—one that must be taught intentionally at every grade level and across disciplines.The text is organized around core principles of effective instruction and reframes an essential question for modern classrooms: How do we cultivate confident writers when AI tools can draft and summarize at the click of a button? Through vivid classroom portraits and analyses of current literacy research, the authors demonstrate how agency is built when students are positioned as critical decision-makers and designers of their own work, rather than passive technology users.Writing Still Matters translates longstanding NWP principles—including teacher leadership and inquiry—for a field being reshaped by AI. It serves as a practical resource for K–12 teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders committed to preserving the human dimension of writing.Key Insights for Educators:Timely Response to AI Anxiety: Provides an authoritative, calm response to urgent literacy questions without relying on fearmongering.Grounded in NWP Research: Leverages 5 decades of classroom-based evidence from the National Writing Project, one of the most trusted organizations in writing education.Focus on Writer Agency: Moves beyond "how-to" tool adoption to prioritize student identity, curiosity, and ethical reasoning.Practical Instructional Frameworks: Includes user-friendly classroom examples, design principles, and inquiry models that teachers can implement immediately.Broad Grade and Disciplinary Reach: Offers strategies applicable for K–12 teachers across English-language arts, social studies, and media studies.

In an age of generative AI, writing matters more than ever.This book examines how educators can support meaningful writing instruction amid rapid technological change by drawing on more than 50 years of National Writing Project (NWP) research and practice. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence as a threat, the authors position writing as a deeply human act of thinking, meaning-making, and civic participation—one that must be taught intentionally at every grade level and across disciplines.The text is organized around core principles of effective instruction and reframes an essential question for modern classrooms: How do we cultivate confident writers when AI tools can draft and summarize at the click of a button? Through vivid classroom portraits and analyses of current literacy research, the authors demonstrate how agency is built when students are positioned as critical decision-makers and designers of their own work, rather than passive technology users.Writing Still Matters translates longstanding NWP principles—including teacher leadership and inquiry—for a field being reshaped by AI. It serves as a practical resource for K–12 teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders committed to preserving the human dimension of writing.Key Insights for Educators:Timely Response to AI Anxiety: Provides an authoritative, calm response to urgent literacy questions without relying on fearmongering.Grounded in NWP Research: Leverages 5 decades of classroom-based evidence from the National Writing Project, one of the most trusted organizations in writing education.Focus on Writer Agency: Moves beyond "how-to" tool adoption to prioritize student identity, curiosity, and ethical reasoning.Practical Instructional Frameworks: Includes user-friendly classroom examples, design principles, and inquiry models that teachers can implement immediately.Broad Grade and Disciplinary Reach: Offers strategies applicable for K–12 teachers across English-language arts, social studies, and media studies.

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will find:

Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide

By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will find:

Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide

By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.