What We Do
Below, you will find information on the many programs, collaborations, and projects in which we are involved. If you are interested in any of the following programs, please contact us via email or sign up for our newsletter; contact information can be found at the bottom of the page.
The Writers Matter Annual Writing Contest
Each year, the Writers Matter program provides students and teachers with formal and informal opportunities to showcase their writing abilities and process important topics. While the official Writers Matter Writing Contest takes place in the spring each year, the program hosts smaller “pop-up” contests periodically as well. We hope you enjoy the exemplars of our students’ creativity below and check back for information about our next contest!
Below, you can find the contest winners and our runner up video and song submission.
Winners
Runner-Up
Our enrichment programs involve a number of organizational partnerships that prioritize community partnership and social justice initiatives. Below you can find our four enrichment programs: Art and Social Justice, Writers Matter Communities, and L.E.A.P.
Enrichment Programs
Art and Social Justice
Calling all 5th and 6th Grade Students! Join us for an exciting after school enrichment program focusing on diverse and local artists. This will include a variety of artists from visual to dance to writers and musicians. We will use the work of the artists to inspire our own biographies, self portraits and use our "art" for activism in our communities.
Communities
In response to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, the Writers Matter Interfaith Initiative underwent reevaluation, leading to its transformation into Writers Matter: Communities (WMC), with broader objectives and a more diverse participant base. Led by an experienced teacher in the Writers Matter program, students from one of our partner K-8 schools, representing different faiths, races, and ethnicities, now contribute to the initiative's focus on fostering racial, ethnic, and socio-economic understanding. The newly structured WMC seeks to demonstrate how diverse communities can collaborate, paving the way for a more unified future among adolescents, emphasizing writing, listening, and understanding as crucial steps forward.
L.E.A.P.
As a partnership program between Writers Matter and Men Who Care of Germantown, the goal is to offer alternative educational settings tailored to school-aged children in Philadelphia's Germantown community, particularly for families needing additional learning assistance during and after school hours. We feature a specialized curriculum addressing the complex emotions and challenges children have faced since the closure of schools in March 2020, including the impacts of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Our students work with their teachers through brainstorming, drafting, writing, revising, and conferencing to create meaningful pieces of writing that reflect their interests, passions, and lived experiences. Check out examples of their work below from previous contests and classroom writing activities.
Our Students’ Work
To celebrate the successes of Philadelphia’s sports teams, including the Phillies, Eagles, and Union, we invited our students to reflect on what these successes meant to them. Click or tap on the image below to view our students’ entries, or you can watch the video here.
Fall 2022 Pop-up Contest Winners
The 2022 WM Writing Contest was inspired by the work of poet Andre Saunders, Writers Matter’s Poet-in-Residence. As part of our contest, students wrote pieces about how the theme of “joy and pain, sunshine and rain” spoke to them then created a video of them performing their pieces. The winning performances were invited to work with Andre to create a professional video that captured their unique perspectives on this theme. Check out their stories in the video above!
Spring 2022 Contest Video
The Writers Matter Israel (WMI) program began in 2011 and was founded by Drs. Robert Vogel and Sami Adwan. WMI engages Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Arab/Palestinian students who are between the ages of 10 and 15 year old. The program, which is embedded into the Peace Drums rehearsals throughout the school year, places emphasis on personal narrative and journal writing. The WMI program provides unique opportunities for young students to have their voices heard by their peers, teachers and parents and to further strengthen the shared society.
Writers Matter Israel
Writers Matter 2015: Israel & the West Bank
To learn more about the Writers Matter Israel and the Peace Drums project, click the button below.
This Program provides a motivational approach for students to write freely about family life, communities, friends, fears, hopes, aspirations, and expectations. Students relate to stories and life experiences of other students of the same age both in their own school and in schools in different parts of the region who are experiencing life in a different way. This strategy helps students to develop more positive attitudes toward others, more actively listen to different perspectives, and hopefully correct negative images or stereotypes they have developed by the nature of living in this area of conflict and hatred. Find out more in the videos below.