LRNG: Making Worlds with Student Hactivists
Each wave of innovation in the education world often pushes educators and practitioners to familiarize themselves with the latest hot-button terms and ideas. Hack? Check. Hacker? Got it. How about...
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For Students in D.C., History Comes Alive for the Year
Last December, a group of 21 high school juniors and seniors gathered in The Phillips Collection, an art museum in Washington D.C. They were viewing The Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence, illustrating...
View ArticleLRNG: “Passion Projects” Encourage Creativity, Connected Learning, and STEM...
Part of the fun of going to a carnival is doing the initial lap around the park to check out all of the booths and rides they have to offer. Deep-fried everything, bumper cars, the Gravitron—your quest...
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Grants Stimulate a Summer of Science Learning for Kids in New Mexico
In rural New Mexico, some 200 students spent the spring and summer harvesting herbs, playing with lie detectors, and learning their way around Photoshop. Such rich programming in science, technology,...
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Live, From Petaluma, It’s the Junior High School News
With an updated studio and the freedom to call the shots, middle schoolers in California learn the basics of broadcasting. Mr. Cameron, school counselor, co-hosts the show with student anchor Zarbia....
View ArticleApplications Now Being Accepted for 2015 LRNG Innovators Challenge Grant
Through a newly launched grant competition, LRNG Innovators is challenging teachers to reach beyond the schoolhouse door to develop partnerships and programs that connect in-school and out-of-school...
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Making Way for Makerspaces with Pop Up and Make
At J.H. Rose High School in Greenville, North Carolina, teachers have been building in time for students to engage in interest-driven, production-centered work across grade level and across disciplines...
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An LRNG Challenge to Educators in 2016: How Will You Join the Evolution of...
New funding opportunities through LRNG will support connected learning by leveraging rich resources in communities and helping young people connect their interests beyond classroom walls. “What if...
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Immigrant Teens in the South Bronx Learn the Art of Online Discussion
You never know what conversations you might come across on Youth Voices, a blog that is home to thousands of teen-written posts and comments on current events, gender inequality, and other topics. Last...
View ArticleLRNG Innovators Challenge Grant Recipients Selected
Teacher-led innovation elevates teaching and focuses on today’s learners. Community art and media making, coding and STEM, urban planning and design are just a few of the innovative programs proposed...
View Article2014 LRNG Innovation Challenge Winners Announced
Educator Innovator—in partnership with LRNG, the Show Me Campaign, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation—is delighted to announce the winners of the first ever LRNG Innovation...
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At Birch School, Students Reimagine Learning By Creating a Room of Their Own
As part of its LRNG-funded Maker Rings project, students at the the Birch School in Rock Tavern, New York, are forming cross-age interest groups and designing their school’s makerspace. All around the...
View ArticleMultimedia Journal Helps Students Heal and Be Heard
At Chicago’s Tilden Career Community Academy, high school students double as enterprising reporters. They film, photograph, and write stories for Tilden Talks, a multimedia journal funded by an LRNG...
View ArticleMiddle School Youth Research, Create, and Take Action to Affect Change
Look around you. Are there issues that need solving? Are there needs not being met? Take a beat from Castle Hill Middle School students, who are taking the reins to create change with a school-wide...
View ArticleLinking Communities with STEM puts Compassion and Service into Practice
Science project. What images does this phrase bring to mind? For many of us, the words likely conjure memories of spur-of-the-moment innovation and late-night preparation for evaluation at the school...
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Leading an Orchestra of Learning
At Eastern Heights Elementary School in St. Paul, a vast new space called the Learning Studio is home to personalized learning. On any given day inside the sprawling Learning Studio at Eastern Heights...
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LRNG: We Too Are Connecticut
“I have never experienced anything like this before, and it was awesome—to get taken out of our bubble, and to expand my understanding of people that live less than ten minutes away from me. I’m so...
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What a Game Jam Taught Los Angeles Teens—and Their Teachers
Early on a Saturday morning in June, about 40 students and teachers filtered into the school gym at the Critical Design and Gaming School (C:\DAGS) in South Central Los Angeles for C:/DAGS’ first-ever...
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Designed Equity: Reflection on Youth-focused Game Jam in South Central LA
In his concluding remarks during his DML 2015 session, “Designing Classroom Equity: Connected Learning and Co-Designed Research from Across the National Writing Project,” DML Conference Committee...
View ArticleAnnouncing Collective Shift and Launch of the New LRNG
Today, the National Writing Project and Educator Innovator join partners across the country in announcing Collective Shift, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to redesign social systems for the...
View ArticleNashville Library Gives Incarcerated Teens the Freedom to Create
How a local public library in Nashville is using digital media to help teens see themselves as readers, and much more. It began with a simple library lending program. When funding for the library at...
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A Lab That Grows Young Writers
An afterschool writing center offers fourth- through eighth-graders the opportunity to explore their creative capacity, creating an open-ended and imaginative space for writing and reflection after...
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In Minneapolis, Fostering Black Voices
English teacher Molly Vasich has always been curious about class participation—what prompts it and what discourages it? Teaching upper-level International Baccalaureate courses to predominantly white...
View ArticleSpark an Interest; Ignite a Passion: Applications Now Being Accepted for the...
“Imagine what it would look like if all our schools were set up to help youth discover and pursue their passions instead of guiding them along a predictable path.” —John Legend LRNG Innovators is...
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Teens at the Nexus of Fashion, Gaming, and Technology
A program based in Brooklyn, NY, makes learning enticing for teenagers, combining topics they might already know a thing or two about: fashion, technology, and video games. “Playable Fashion” began in...
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Continuous Impact & Growth: Checking in with Previous LRNG Awardees
With the 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge ongoing, we revisit the continuing success of some of our past grantees. In 2014, the first cohort of LRNG Innovators launched with the tagline of “No Bells, No...
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Story Project Builds Community Among Diverse Set of Teens
A new storytelling project in Kansas City builds community among diverse high school students. The age-old art of storytelling is back in style. Personal narrative podcasts are all the rage, and “story...
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Behind the Camera, Students Document Life and Learning
At Philadelphia’s Workshop School, students are developing media production skills to shape their school community and their own learning. The video opens with a voiceover: “Are you tired of...
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In East L.A., Teenagers Tell New Stories About Their Neighborhood and Make...
Civic engagement projects give students at East Los Angeles Renaissance Academy an opportunity to celebrate their community, as well as the skills and experience to make positive change. Search for...
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In the Borderlands, Connecting Writing and STEM Learning
Girlhood Remixed and Ink Spilling create formative summer camp experiences for youth nearing adolescence, connecting young women with STEM skills and opportunities, and giving the STEM-inclined an...
View ArticleThe 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge Grantees
Teacher-led innovation to help youth connect learning that happens in and out of school. The third annual LRNG Innovators challenge invited educators to imagine learning experiences that help young...
View ArticleTelling Stories of Place, Change, and Culture in Alaska
The Sitka Story Lab, which helps students explore and express their stories while building writing and media skills, extends its work into rural Alaskan native communities with support from our LRNG...
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On the River, Lessons about Life and Learning
Students take to the river, building collaboration and problem-solving skills by building and sailing their own rafts, in conjunction with a critical reading of Huckleberry Finn. For Huckleberry Finn,...
View ArticleContinuous Impact & Growth: Checking in with DC’s Real World History
Students share their thoughts on what makes Cosby Hunt’s Real World History program, one of the 2014 LRNG Innovators Challenge grantees, such a unique and powerful way to connect with history. In these...
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Novel Art Class Spurs Kids to Collaborate for their Community
Using collaboration and design-thinking, LRNG Innovators Challenge grantee “Creating with Confidence” revamps AP Art to encourage students to create art with public purpose. Radwan Khatib, a junior at...
View ArticleConnected Learning All Summer Long with Parent Playlists
Parent Playlists, from LRNG and Educator Innovator, offer fun activities that engage parents and kids in connected learning all summer long, highlighting the ways that learning happens in all aspects...
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Catching up with LRNG Grantees at Riverside, Tar River, and Castle Hill
Three 2014 LRNG Innovators Challenge grantees share how their work has progressed, relaying both tremendous successes and ongoing challenges. Since we last checked in with Liberty Elementary, a 2014...
View ArticleTeachers Are the Catalyst: John Legend Highlights LRNG Innovators in (a...
By supporting educators across the country to imagine engaging ways to help young people explore their interests, LRNG Innovators and the National Writing Project’s Educator Innovator Initiative...
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Student Passion Projects Push for Connections with Local Community and...
Social Innovation Leadership Sabbaticals, a 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge grantee in Antioch, TN, provides the space and resources for students to pursue their wild ideas, revealing a desire to do...
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Student Choice and Agency Let Superpowers Shine
Grass Valley Elementary’s schoolwide shift towards connected learning and maker education, supported by an LRNG Innovators Challenge grant, is letting students shine by giving them opportunities for...
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Students Tap into Passions to Serve Community With New Making Skills
Students from a small project-based learning high school in Oakland County, Michigan connect out-of-school passions, new maker skills, and rigorous design thinking to identify a community need and...
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Engaging Community, History, and Civic Dialogue in Charlottesville
Charlottesville students dig into the stories, told and untold, that make up their community’s history, and prepare to engage as citizens in the dialogue of the present. These last few years, a lot of...
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Craft, Curiosity, and Community: Students Find Passion and Relevance...
A class and internship program at a nearby vintage auto shop creates opportunities for Grass Valley, CA high-school students to reconnect with the world of long-term projects and passionate pursuits....
View ArticlePhilly School Media Network Creates Authentic Platforms for Philadelphia Youth
The Philly School Media Network, a 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge grantee, is building partnerships with local teachers and journalists to infuse journalistic practices into classroom writing, and to...
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Making a Future for All: Supporting Passion and Purpose for Youth in Kentucky
At Bath County Middle School in Eastern Kentucky, a community block party is underway. All around, students excitedly show off an incredible variety of passion projects, from homemade musical...
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OneCity Stories: Building Community Through Passion-Driven Learning,...
The St. Louis metro area is one of many communities, says Gateway Writing Project co-director Katherine O’Daniels. The county is divided into 91 different municipalities, with most of its population...
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Student Work Creates Bridge Between School and Community
Like anywhere in the United States today, the rural Texas town of Bastrop, located about 30 miles outside of Austin, is no stranger to the pervasive narrative of our nation’s “failing public schools.”...
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Deep Center: How a Strong Pedagogy Allows for Improvisation and Teaching to...
In spring 2018, Deep Center, thanks to an Educator Innovator mini-grant from the National Writing Project, piloted extended programming at one of Savannah’s most challenged public schools, Hubert...
View ArticleFrom Passion to Purpose: 10 Teacher-Led Awards Distributed via the 2019 LRNG...
This year’s LRNG Innovators Challenge invited educators to design ways that youth can share their work with their communities, build real-world connections, and have impact on the issues that matter...
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Green is the New Pink: Young Women Environmentalists in Action
Dressed in full “Ghostbusters outfits,” a group of 15 usually quiet and introverted middle school girls are abuzz with questions and predictions as they prepare to electrically shock a pond and count...
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