Make Writing Studios

Visit our studio in western New York, or work with Angela to create a Pop-Up Studio in Your Own Classroom, School, or Community.

Make Writing Studios, formerly the WNY Young Writers’ Studio, is a makerspace for writers and a welcoming place for teacher leaders, adult writers from all walks of life, and education researchers who are eager to improve their practice.  We use loose parts to play with language in all of its forms, embracing multimodal compositional processes and the development of multimodal products. Founded in 2008, Studio is a learning community that positively impacts what happens inside of classrooms, schools, writing workshops, and studios within and far beyond western New York.

Looking for testimonials? I’ve added them to the bottom of this page. Want to peek inside some of our spaces? You’ll find photo albums here, here, and here (photos shared with permission).

So what’s a Pop-Up Studio?

In 2015, school and community leaders from other corners of the world began inviting me to consult with them on the development of their own writing studios shortly after the publication of my first book, Make Writing. That book was the result of action research that I conducted in Studio and inside of the classrooms where I’ve served as a professional learning facilitator for writing teachers over the last two decades. That learning continues, and additional books have followed.  In 2024, several of the documentation projects completed during Studio sessions were included in this digital documentation notebook that supplements my newest release, The Writing Teacher’s Guide to Pedagogical Documentation: Rethinking How We Assess Learners and Learning. If you’re someone who has read my work, then you may appreciate how my thinking and practice continues to deepen and evolve over time.

Pop-Up Studios are held in school districts and through different community-based organizations who invite me in to work with kids and teachers too, if they choose. These events unfold over the course of single days or entire weeks. Once they end, I make myself available for return site visits and virtual conversations, as needed. Sometimes, these experiences are designed for K-12 writers and designers alone. More often, they’re also learning labs for teachers and leaders who have an interest in observing multimodal composers, documentarians, and action researchers at work. 

Every experience I create is unique to the organization I serve. Some organizations have established makerspaces. Others have classrooms, libraries, or community rooms that I’ve been invited to transform temporarily, and I am more than happy to do this. Most organizations run pop up Studios as summer camp experiences, and others offer them during the school year, within or adjacent to the writing workshops that English or ELA teachers facilitate.

Need a consult?

Are you eager to start your own writing studio, evolve an already established makerspace or writing workshop, or bring me in to host a pop-up studio for teachers, young writers, and designers? I’m happy to simply consult with you, too. To date, I’ve helped several dozen school districts create studios like my own. I’ve worked with a variety of museums and private consultants, too.

Contact me.  I’d love to help.