Writing Our Lives

Writing Our Lives provides Syracuse area youth with creative opportunities to write, create, produce, and share their stories. The program takes multiple formats, including after-school writing programs, summer writing institutes, book clubs, digital composing programs, theatrical performances, and an annual youth writing conference.

Professor Marcelle Haddix also engages faculty and staff from across the School of Education and Syracuse University to present and facilitate workshops, as well as both undergraduate and graduate students.

For more information contact:

Marcelle Haddix, Associate Provost; Distinguished Dean's Professor
mhaddix@syr.edu|315.443.7642
Marcelle Haddix

Community Engagement Fellows

The Writing Our Lives Community Engagement Fellowship is a unique opportunity for a community engaged teaching artist to develop and facilitate youth literacy and arts programming. This fellowship bridges creative teaching and community collaboration within the dynamic environment of Central New York. It provides an opportunity for teaching artists from an array of disciplines to explore cross-disciplinary programming that cultivates writing and literacy spaces for youth within and beyond school communities.

Fellows will:

  • Develop and facilitate a Writing Our Lives program curriculum for adolescent youth writers;
  • Direct an after-school program for Writing Our Lives youth participants;
  • Provide arts-based writing workshops for Writing Our Lives youth participants;
  • Coordinate and develop programming for the annual Writing Our Lives conference;
  • Guest lecture in literacy and education courses for the Reading and Language Arts department as assigned;
  • Identify individual and programmatic goals for the fellowship, generating and developing curriculums and events appropriate to those goals;
  • Engage with a community of artistic professionals and organizations in the Greater Syracuse area;
  • Receive support for the advancement and advocacy of work generated during the year, along with continued access to Syracuse University resources and facilities during the course of the Fellowship.