“My high school students don’t see themselves as writers,” says Jennifer Ward, a high school English teacher in Grandville, Michigan. “They come into class and declare, ‘I hate writing!’ They don’t see their stories, their experiences, their voices as worth sharing.” As a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, Jennifer wanted to change that. The result? MIteenWriters.org, a literary platform for teen writers across the state of Michigan.
Teen literary magazines can help students build confidence, leadership, and creative writing skills. Instead of limiting a student magazine to school walls, use shared geography as an anchor to bring in stories from across the state.
Jennifer and her high school English students created MIteenWriters.org to lift teen voices across the state of Michigan. They used Weebly and Submittable to develop the platform, with guidance from TED-Ed, TeenInk, and the National Writing Project. While the idea was originally confined to one high school, it cheerfully snowballed to include every high school in the area. Today, submissions are open to all students in the mitten state between the ages of 13-18, and each submission is reviewed for publication by a team of student editors.
Below, read Jennifer’s tips on how to start your own student literary magazine:
This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers. Art credit: iStockPhoto.
I must congratulate Jennifer for doing this great work. I am myself an English teacher and I have done several such writing and spoken tasks with my students.
Thank you! I’d love to connect and learn together. Perhaps we could connect our student writers!