Writing for Peace book!
(Under contract with Teachers College Press, Columbia University—cover coming soon!)
Juana Maria Echeverri, Rodrigo Rojas Ospina, and Kate Vieira, with Luisa Salazar Fernanda León
In a moment of increasing violence in the U.S. and across the world, how might educators and community leaders use writing to promote peace and justice? While writing studies scholars have shown that writing’s affordances make it an exceptional tool for peace building, guides for teaching writing for peace are few and far between. This book, the product of a unique multi-year transnational collaboration among U.S. and Colombian scholars, educators, teacher-educators, and writers, fills that need.
Specifically, we offer a story-rich, bilingual exploration of teaching writing for peace, including key research- and experience-based principles and practices, testimonies from educators, interviews with young people and samples of their poetry, and a library of prompts and plans for use in the classroom. Building from the premise that the language arts have a crucial role to play in social change, especially for young people, this book both offers accessible ways for educators to begin or expand their writing-for-peace pedagogies.
Research funded by Fulbright/ICETEX (2018-2019) and writing and data analysis funded by an Institute for Research in the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Madison (2021), and the Spencer Foundation (2024-2025).
Writing for Peace Articles
“Cross-border Collaborations for Peace: Writing a Common Heart” in Pluriversal Literacies: Tools for Perseverance and Livable Futures. Eds Ellen Cushman, Damián Baca, and Romeo Garcia, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024.
“Six Principles of Writing for Peace / Seis Principios de Escribir Para la Paz: Lessons from EncantaPalabras in Colombia” Juana María Echeverri, Rodrigo Rojas Ospina, and Kate Vieira. Transformations Journal 1(1), 2023.
“What Happens When Texts Fly.” College English, Special Issue on Texts, 82.1 (2019): 77-95.
Writing a Common Heart/ Escribiendo un Corazón Común book and board game!
Edited by Jhoana Patiño and Kate Vieira
Peace: Writing a Common Heart is a community-authored book and board game, co-edited by Jhoana Patiño and Kate Vieira, committed to the construction of peace via writing. It was funded by a Baldwin Seed Grant, the Susan J. Cellmer Distinguished Chair in Literacy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Fulbright/ICETEX.
Our team includes high school students, teachers, activists, artists, editors, psychologists, adults, young people, and writers. For us, “peace” does not have only one meaning.
The materials are open access and free.
The kit was distributed to schools, community centers, and community leaders in a pedagogical tour in Caldas in November 2019.
Please publish your own poetry for peace, based on our prompts or your own, here.
