Should a bowdlerized version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn replace the controversial original version? That’s the subject at the heart of this Mother Jones piece, which addresses censorship in the classroom. Tadd Scott, one of the English teachers at Mission High School that WritersCorps works with, weighs in — and also offers his own take on how English classes can better serve a more multicultural society than Twain’s by offering their students alternative narratives alongside classics like Huck Finn.

WritersCorps attended AWP in Chicago last week to present our new book: “Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds: The Teachers of WritersCorps in Poetry and Prose.” We had a panel reading on Saturday, February 14. Yes, it was Valentine’s Day. And lots of people shared their love of WritersCorps.

The panel featured several writers from the anthology, all writers who had served in WritersCorps.

Here are the panelists: Chad Sweeney (who also edited the book), Maiana Minahal, Hoa Nguyen, Thomas Centolella, Elissa Perry, and Jeffrey McDaniel. It was great to hear everyone’s different styles and voices.

We also had a lot of fun checking out other panels at AWP, plus the big bookfair.

In fact, it was such an action-packed conference that it took us a week to recuperate and write this post. Thank you to everyone who came to our panel and to Elaine, our publisher from City Lights. And to the great city of Chicago. We had a lovely time.

Our training coordinator, Judith Tannebaum, has revamped her personal website. It’s full of information about teaching arts and prison arts, so if you’re looking for resources on those subjects, check it out.