Writing Our Future: American Creed has Launched!

March 19, 2018
By Educator Innovator

The National Writing Project is thrilled to announce to educators across the country that it has launched a Writing Our Future youth publishing project in partnership with Citizen Film, the makers of the PBS documentary American Creed. This project invites educators to bring the film to their classroom or learning center and to support young people in joining the film’s conversation through their own writing, art, and media responses.

Teens (13+) and young adults are invited to share at the youth publishing website supported by their teachers and guided by a set of 5 prompts from the film to inspire their responses. Educators are provided guidelines for mentoring this process as well as a range of resources created by Writing Project teachers who have used this film in their own classrooms.

Visit https://writingourfuture.nwp.org/americancreed to learn more about this project and to get involved.

Start Writing with American Creed Start Writing: Support youth in responding to the questions that inspire them from the film: What is your American creed? How does your family and community history connect? How is an American creed expressed through words, symbols, rituals? How do diverse Americans understand the American creed? How can you express your American creed through action?
Get Inspired by American Creed Get Inspired: Read youth responses from across the country that have already been published.
Visit American Creed Classrooms Visit Our Classrooms: In the top navigation of the website, under the resources menu, you will find writer and educator guidelines as well as an invitation to “visit our classrooms” where resources created by Writing Project teachers are available for other teachers. A continuously evolving collection, this page features a video introduction from the resource creator as well as curated links to remixable curriculum.

 
See also resources from our partners that support ongoing discussion and conversations, both in the classroom and beyond, around issues raised by American Creed.

The documentary aired on PBS February 27, 2018 and remains available for educators to stream on the PBS website. The youth publishing website will remain open through the summer and into the 2018-2019 school year. A promotional toolkit is also available to help spread the word about this exciting project.