Andover Bread Loaf A Phillips Academy Outreach Program
Fall/Winter Newsletter 2016
From the Director Andover Bread Loaf transforms students, teachers, schools, and communities by igniting a passion for learning through written self-expression.
The ABL Antidote to Violence and Injustice The teachers, mentors, young people, children, and youth-serving organizations involved in 2016 Andover Bread Loaf writing workshops came together this summer having experienced, like the rest of the world, the trauma of persistent violence and injustice. Four main workshops used writing, free and creative expression, shared inquiry, and “collective genius” to discover our voices and develop our strengths as teachers, learners, and advocates for peace and equity. For three weeks in July, more than 70 high school students and 19 writing leaders took part in the Lawrence Student Writers Workshop; some 30 middle school students and six writing leaders gathered for the Rising Loaves program at the Lawrence History Center; and 35 first- through fifth-graders were guided by 14 writing leaders in the Slice at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence. These workshops were so compelling that our ABL writing leaders offered more workshops for all age groups throughout the rest of the summer at our partner organizations, the Boys and Girls Club and Elevated Thought. The love and hope expressed in the writing and performances was our antidote to the toxic events that touched us all.
What’s Inside?
Inspire
This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Michael Armstrong, a primary school teacher in the U.K. and longtime ABL faculty member who died in May 2016. He worked for more than a decade in classrooms and online with Lawrence teachers, students, and ABL staff, helping to set ABL’s sights on a “pedagogy of hope,” which led to good stories, academic achievement, and social action. Michael used literature, the arts, everyday thinking, and the boundless imaginations of children to advocate for a just and equitable agenda for education in Lawrence and beyond.
It’s official!
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ABL awards
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Numbers of note
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Lowell teachers inspired
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Our generous donors
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Photos by Gil Talbot and John Hurley
The ABL Writing Workshop for Teachers also was well attended. Seventeen teachers from Lowell, Boston, Randolph, and Lawrence Mass.; New York City; New Orleans; and Gallup, N.M., convened at Phillips Academy in July. The teacher participants and ABL staff members visited the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in Vermont, joining a network of teachers from across the country who share the goal of providing teachers and youth with opportunities for learning, agency, and social action locally and beyond. All ABL workshops and related events were provided at no cost to participants—and that is why your continued support is so vital! Veteran writing leader Nathan Baez (in pink) leads a writing prompt with his group from the Lawrence Student Writers Workshop. They are on the steps of Phillips Academy’s George Washington Hall.
Lou Bernieri