After-School Writing Lab (ASWL) takes place after school for students in 2nd through 8th grade.
In After School Writing Lab students will explore interdisciplinary forms of poetry, storytelling, collage and audio recording. The program will culminate with a gallery exhibition, listening party and live reading at 826CHI’s Spring Showcase.
For the 2024-2025 school year, 826CHI will be partnering with Zapata Elementary for our After-School Writing Lab program.
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This year we will be bringing our Field Trips to you! Each of our Traveling Field Trips will be hosted on Tuesdays and Thursdays in classrooms throughout the city. Field Trips are tuition-free and offered to Chicago Public School classes in grades one through twelve. Each of our Field Trip experiences is designed to be project-based, collaborative, playful, empowering, and imaginative, encouraging students to share their ideas in their unique voices.
Field Trips will run from October through May for the 2024-25 school year.
826CHI prioritizes programs and services for students and communities most impacted by systemic disinvestment in high-quality literacy and arts education, students who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse learners, and English language learners, as well as neighborhood schools.
If you’re interested in one of our Field Trips, sign up for our newsletter and fill out our interest form below!
Traveling Field Trip Interest Form
Please email programs@826chi.org with any questions.
Students will be taken on a poetry adventure and be tasked with writing a series of poems to after they become overwhelmed by all the work going on around the secret publishing house. Their mission will be to write emotion-centered poems - topics like What is Your Happy? Hard emotions? What Makes You Feel Calm When You're Overwhelmed? This Field Trip is great for building empathy and self-awareness into the classroom.
Students are guided through an adventure of writing stories using images from magazines as their guide. These stories can go a multitude of directions, depending on which pictures are chosen and how they are interpreted. Staff and volunteers support students as they make a collage of their images and develop clever, imaginative stories based on them. This Field Trip helps share effective, tangible, and memorable skills into the writing process and helps make writing feel more fun for students who may not be a fan of writing or think they have nothing to write about. Each student will receive a copy of their group’s book, as a published author.
Students will learn about the history of spoken word poetry and its deep roots in Chicago. They will also apply poetic elements to their own original poems individually and as a group and get the chance to share out loud. This Field Trip is great for students who are expressive and enjoy spoken word poetry. This is a great addition for classrooms preparing for, culminating, or in the middle of a poetry unit.
Not currently available for the 2024-2025 school year.
Our Summer Programs have now finished for the year, but be sure to check back in Spring 2025 and stay connected through our newsletter. See below for more information on our Summer 2024 program offerings!
Calling all food enthusiasts, writers, and those who relish the art of dining! If you have a passion for food and a talent for storytelling, this workshop is calling your name. Join a team of renowned chefs and fellow food lovers for an engaging series of workshops aimed at honing your writing skills while tantalizing your taste buds. Over the course of a week, you'll learn the craft of crafting compelling food reviews, sample the finest culinary offerings the city has to offer, and create written works that will be savored by foodies and chefs throughout Chicago. Come embark on this delicious journey where every word is as satisfying as every bite! The EYW Camp for elementary school runs from July 15th - 18th from 9am-3pm.
SIGN UP CLOSEDCalling all food enthusiasts, writers, and those who relish the art of dining! If you have a passion for food and a talent for storytelling, this workshop is calling your name. Join a team of renowned chefs and fellow food lovers for an engaging series of workshops aimed at honing your writing skills while tantalizing your taste buds. Over the course of a week, you'll learn the craft of crafting compelling food reviews, sample the finest culinary offerings the city has to offer, and create written works that will be savored by foodies and chefs throughout Chicago. Come embark on this delicious journey where every word is as satisfying as every bite! The EYW Camp for middle school runs from July 22nd - 25th from 9am-3pm.
Sign Up CLOSED
826CHI works in collaboration with after-school programs and community-based organizations to offer creative writing workshops to students in neighborhoods across Chicago. These workshops, which explore writing and another area of study, include:
All of our workshops are Common Core Standards-aligned.
Do you work with students who would benefit from two or three session writing workshops in your space or ours? Have an idea for a workshop? email us at programs@826chi.org
Teen Writers Studio (TWS) is a year-long creative writing workshop that connects high school students to fellow writers, including peers and older professionals in the field. It’s open to anyone in 7th-12th grade and welcomes youth from all over the city. TWS members meet frequently each month to write together, talk about writing, and produce a literary chapbook each year. If you’re into any of the above, this space is for you.
Each spring, TWS students produce a chapbook, which they share and celebrate at a release party with friends, family, and 826CHI’s community.
Built to meet the needs of educators, our In-School Partnerships program brings the 826CHI education team into classrooms and community centers across the city to work with students. 826CHI staff, volunteers, and Teaching Artists support teachers' existing curricula and/or collaborate on new ideas. If you are a classroom teacher or community-based educator looking to partner with 826CHI, please share your project idea with us by applying today.
If you have any questions, email us at programs@826chi.org.
At 826CHI, our project-based approach to teaching writing affirms all student voices as valuable and brilliant. Through our programs, we turn our students into published authors. Each year, we publish more than 100 unique projects, from professionally edited, printed, and designed books to books and zines printed and bound in-house by our staff.
Students’ work is featured in Chicago Public Library branches across the city, shelved in CPS school libraries, prominently displayed in our writing lab to inspire future student-authors, and sold in and independent bookstores throughout the city.
Published dozens of times each year as the culmination of smaller, multi-week projects.
Each year 826CHI partners with CPS classrooms on an extended writing project which culminates in a specially designed and beautifully bound book.
Published once every two years. Each volume of this anthology features republished favorites from students of all ages, from across our programs.
Published at the end of each two-hour creative writing session, students take home copies of the original story they wrote together as a class.
Purchase copies at The Secret Agent Supply or check out of your local Chicago library branch.
Wherever you are, you can bring the 826 spirit and methodology to your community with 826 Digital. 826 Digital is an online platform that hosts a collection of engaging, adaptable, standards-based resources designed to captivate young writers and empower their educators.
826 Digital was created by teachers for teachers; it hosts an ever-expanding collection of lessons, projects, writing prompts, and student writing that brings an unconventional and engaging approach to teaching writing.
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