The Chicago Exchange Events

Elspeth Murray and Amanda Lichenstein took part in the Teaching Artist Exchange, organised and funded by the Scottish Arts Council in partnership with the Citizen’s Theatre, Scottish Book Trust and TAG. Elspeth has spent two weeks in schools and arts organisations in Chicago and Amanda has been in Scotland for two weeks.

We ran a series of events for different groups, one with the BRAW network authors, a teacher CPD session, a classroom session in Grangemouth High School, a workshop with Summerside Primary on the Reading Bus in Aberdeen and a reception at the Scottish Poetry Library all with the same aims:

Elspeth Murray is a poet and wordsmith and has done a lot of collaborative work in education, theatre, film, business and health. She has taken part in several Arts Across the Curriculum projects and has led poetry workshops in schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, East Renfrewshire and Argyll and Bute. With the Scottish Poetry Library she has been Poet in Residence at librarian training events, their ‘Reading Poetry Aloud’ workshop as well as projects with Sciennes Primary and Trinity High School. She is currently a mentor in the Scottish Book Trusts three-way mentoring scheme, which aims to help teachers and writers work together to inspire children to write.

Amanda Lichtenstein writes poetry and creative non-fiction and for over ten years has led literary arts residencies in schools in over twenty-five schools in various cities and small towns around the US. She works as a teaching artist and arts education consultant with nationally recognized arts organizations such as Urban Gateways: The Centre for Arts Education, The Centre for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP), and Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). She is co-editor of AIMPRINT: New relationships in the Arts and Learning, a collection of essays by Chicago artists and teachers on arts integrated teaching and learning. Essays on teaching writing appear in Teaching Artist Journal, Teachers & Writers, Teaching Tolerance, and Art in the Public Interest.

You will be able to read some feedback form the sessions here soon and in July you will be able to read an exclusive Q&A with Elspeth and Amanda.

Useful Links
www.elspethmurray.com -Elspeth's Website
http://stanzabreak.blogspot.com/ - Amanda's Blog
http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Some-Instructions-Writing-Life/dp/0385480016
http://www.ianhamiltonfinlay.com/
http://www.alecfinlay.com/alec.html