I’m delighted to announce that Seattle Youth Arts and Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs has awarded me a grant to build a fiction and memoir-writing program at King County Juvenile Detention Center. I am working with incarcerated teens to tell their stories and develop literacy skills. Read more here.
This grant will expand the work I’ve been doing since 2005 with the adult inmates of King County Jail. If you have any books you’re finished with, I encourage you to donate them to your local jail, prison, or juvenile correctional facility. They are a gift to the inmates, and greatly appreciated.
In the College of Education at Seattle University, my students are pre-service and in-service k-12 teachers. I am moved and impressed each year by their dedication to serving young people.
My literature class helps teachers learn how to use children’s literature and young adult fiction to support literacy instruction, and introduces them to some of the wonderful authors and books in those genres.
My writing seminar focuses on how to teach writing in k-12 classrooms. At the core of this class is the belief that the best teachers of writing are writers themselves.
My current research is focused on using street literature to build literacy with at-risk and incarcerated young adults. My next scheduled session on this topic is at the 58th Annual International Reading Association Convention in 2013. If you would like me to present at a conference or school, please feel free to contact me. I love speaking to learners of all ages.
Guerra, S. (2012). Using Urban Fiction to Engage At-Risk and Incarcerated Youth in Literacy Instruction, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (55)5, p 385-394.
Guerra, S. (2010). Reaching Out to At-Risk Teens: Building Literacy with Incarcerated Youth, PNLA Quarterly, 74:5.
Guerra, S. (2010). Teaching with Urban Fiction. Paper presented at the annual meeting of WORD, Redmond, WA.
Guerra, S. (2010). The Transformative Potential of Young Adult Urban Fiction for Incarcerated Youth. Paper presented at the annual meeting of WLA/PNLA, Victoria, Canada.
