Student Press Initiative
Encyclopedia
The Student Press Initiative (SPI) at Teachers College, Columbia University
, is a professional development program for teachers, which uses publication as a tool to teach literacy skills. Publication, or "Going Public," entails everything from publishing professionally bound books of student writing and organizing community-based panel discussions to developing downloadable MP3s and staging theatrical performances. This not-for-profit educational organization partners with schools to transform classrooms into mini-publishing houses that celebrate student voice, activism and achievement. Founded in 2002, SPI provides intensive consultation and curriculum planning resources to classroom teachers in its partner schools, and publishes the culminating student-authored projects.
According to the organization’s website, SPI has partnered with over 60 schools over the past seven years. The goal of the partnerships is to link Teachers College resources with classrooms across the nation. Through these partnerships, SPI provides teachers with the tools and support they need to create projects that culminate in the publication of student-written books and teacher-written curriculum guides. SPI has published student-authored texts written across the disciplines, including math, science, English language Arts, ELL and bilingual studies. Over the years, the organization has hosted public performances of student work at various community venues, including Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores, the Samsung Experience at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, and the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. In 2008, SPI partner teachers received one of four Tribute WTC Visitor Center Annual Teacher Awards for the book Yesterday’s Issues, Today’s Perspectives, Tomorrow’s Lessons written by students from the Academy for Young Writers.
. Before completing his Masters in English Education at Teachers College, Gordon was a fiction writer and the founding editor of Underhouse in San Francisco's independent zine
scene in the early 90s. Gordon later carried this spirit of self-publishing into his classroom at the New York City Lab School where he built Bag of Bees Press as a way to further the writing efforts of his students.
SPI follows in the footsteps of educators such as James Moffett, Peter Elbow
, Ken Macrorie, Eliot Wigginton
, and Ruth Vinz, who have long advocated for celebrating student voice and writing with rhetorical purpose. In keeping with this tradition, SPI believes curriculum-based publications that "grow from highly specified genre studies in the classroom not only democratize students' opportunities to publish, but also provide opportunities to link content-area reading and writing skill development with the excitement of real-world learning."
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...
, is a professional development program for teachers, which uses publication as a tool to teach literacy skills. Publication, or "Going Public," entails everything from publishing professionally bound books of student writing and organizing community-based panel discussions to developing downloadable MP3s and staging theatrical performances. This not-for-profit educational organization partners with schools to transform classrooms into mini-publishing houses that celebrate student voice, activism and achievement. Founded in 2002, SPI provides intensive consultation and curriculum planning resources to classroom teachers in its partner schools, and publishes the culminating student-authored projects.
According to the organization’s website, SPI has partnered with over 60 schools over the past seven years. The goal of the partnerships is to link Teachers College resources with classrooms across the nation. Through these partnerships, SPI provides teachers with the tools and support they need to create projects that culminate in the publication of student-written books and teacher-written curriculum guides. SPI has published student-authored texts written across the disciplines, including math, science, English language Arts, ELL and bilingual studies. Over the years, the organization has hosted public performances of student work at various community venues, including Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores, the Samsung Experience at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, and the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. In 2008, SPI partner teachers received one of four Tribute WTC Visitor Center Annual Teacher Awards for the book Yesterday’s Issues, Today’s Perspectives, Tomorrow’s Lessons written by students from the Academy for Young Writers.
History
While the Student Press Initiative began officially as a non-profit organization out of Teachers College in 2002, SPI first took root in the classroom of founder, Erick GordonErick Gordon
Erick Gordon is the Founding Director of the Student Press Initiative at Teachers College, Columbia University, a professional development program for teachers whose mission is to turn writing instruction into inquiry-driven projects that culminate in student publication.-Biography:Prior to...
. Before completing his Masters in English Education at Teachers College, Gordon was a fiction writer and the founding editor of Underhouse in San Francisco's independent zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
scene in the early 90s. Gordon later carried this spirit of self-publishing into his classroom at the New York City Lab School where he built Bag of Bees Press as a way to further the writing efforts of his students.
Philosophy and tradition
The Student Press Initiative’s philosophy of project-based learning focuses on three key principals: genre study, writing for authentic audience, and community involvement and connection. SPI’s mission is to "...revolutionize education by advancing teacher leadership in reading and writing instruction,” according to its web site. The organization believes students become experts in a project’s central writing forms through immersion in genre study. Students read mentor texts, break the genre down into its components and, ultimately, craft pieces that represent their learning and culminate in the publication of their original writing.SPI follows in the footsteps of educators such as James Moffett, Peter Elbow
Peter Elbow
Peter Elbow is currently a Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he also directed the Writing Program from 1996 until 2000...
, Ken Macrorie, Eliot Wigginton
Eliot Wigginton
Eliot Wigginton is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He was most widely known for developing the Foxfire Project, a writing project that led to a magazine and the series of best-selliing Foxfire books, twelve volumes in all...
, and Ruth Vinz, who have long advocated for celebrating student voice and writing with rhetorical purpose. In keeping with this tradition, SPI believes curriculum-based publications that "grow from highly specified genre studies in the classroom not only democratize students' opportunities to publish, but also provide opportunities to link content-area reading and writing skill development with the excitement of real-world learning."
Past and present partner schools
- Academy for Young Writers
- Beacon High School
- Banana Kelly High School
- Bayard Rustin Educational ComplexBayard Rustin High School for the HumanitiesThe Bayard Rustin Educational Complex at 351 West 18th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a "vertical campus" of the New York City Department of Education which contains a number of small public schools, most of them high schools...
- Art and Music Academy
- Math and Science Academy
- Institute for Media and Writing
- International School of Business
- Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School
- Brooklyn Lab School
- Brooklyn Preparatory High School
- DeWitt Clinton High SchoolDeWitt Clinton High SchoolDeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...
- Excelsior Preparatory High School
- Foundations Academy
- Hempstead High SchoolHempstead High School (New York)Hempstead High School is a public high school located in Hempstead, New York.-Design:The building is a three level structure with an open courtyard in the center of the school. The school is built on a marshy area and local legend holds that the school sinks a few inches every year...
- Heritage High School
- Hoboken/A.J. Demerest High SchoolHoboken High SchoolHoboken High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school in Hoboken, New Jersey, part of the Hoboken Public Schools district.As of the 2008-09 school year, the school had an enrollment of 540 students and 49.5 classroom teachers , for a student–teacher ratio of 10.9.The school was the...
- Holcombe L Rucker School of Community Research
- Horizon Academy at Rikers Island
- Long Creek Detention Center, ME
- Long Island City High SchoolLong Island City High SchoolLong Island City High School, commonly abbreviated L.I.C. or LICHS, is a public high school in New York City, located in Long Island City in the borough of Queens. The present building was built in 1995...
- Manhattan Business Academy
- Millennium Art AcademyMillennium Art AcademyMillennium Art Academy first opened its doors in September 2003 in the Bronx. Originally located on the Herbert H. Lehman Educational Campus campus the Academy moved after its first year to the Adlai E. Stevenson Campus...
- New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies
- Pablo Neruda Academy
- Queens Preparatory High School
- Rose M. Singer Center
- University of Sarajevo, Bosnia