Weekly Wide-Awake #64

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

back

Weekly Wide-Awake #64

Summer of Soul. The Law of Nature. Drama Teaching. Roxanne Schroeder-Arce.

Resistance here doesn’t mean revolution. It doesn’t mean storming the barricades. Resistance means using art for the things that it does best, which is to create human portraits and communicate ideas and forge a climate where people of different races or classes are known to you because they make themselves known. In the simplest terms, art humanizes. It opens the circuit of empathy. And once that process happens, it’s that much harder to think of people as part of a policy or a statistic. Art reverses the alienation that can creep into society. — Questlove

Summer of Soul

I want to think about the connection between art and freedom, between empathy and freedom, between love and freedom. The list of all that is wrong right now breaks my heart. I know that if some are not free, all are not free.

I seek solace in the thought that art humanizes. I write because I have no choice. My voice trembles, but I still write. Through writing, I make my voice heard. I join a chorus of artists who make themselves known and, in so doing, soften hearts and open spaces that isolation, alienation, and cruelty destroy. I have always felt safe and beautiful singing in a chorus. Ideas like peace, justice, and love are big ideas, and art is big enough for all that and more.

As I think about freedom, I want look forward. I want to pay attention to the beauty and pain of the past, look honestly at the present situation, and create a future where the as if, not yet, and I am dance. A future better than any past we have ever known, worthy of generations.

Read/Listen to Sam Sanders’ NPR Interview, “Questlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’ brings lost music back to life”\

Read Carol Cooper’s NPR story, “After A Violent Winter, The ‘Summer Of Soul’ Was A Musical Moment Of Healing”

Living the Comma #38

Nature. Power. Emerson.

“The law of nature is: Do the thing, and you shall have the power, but they who do not the thing have not the power.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Writer Friends,

I recently spent a weekend inside Acadia National Park. Climbing stone stairs. Walking carriage paths. Listening to rushing water. Combing rocky beaches. Breathing ocean breezes. Noticing granite boulders. Learning about moss and ferns. I am convinced that Nature has the power. Nature does the thing. Nature does not have to be reminded to do the thing. Nature roots and blooms. Nature ebbs and flows. Nature lives and dies.

Writing does the thing. Writers and poets understand this. The slowing down. The paying attention. The finding awe. The telling about it, as Mary Oliver instructs. Writing brings me a bit closer to the thing. Writing brings me a bit closer to the power.

Read entire post here.

WANTED WEEK 4

Notes From A Failed High School Drama Teacher

In January of 1998, after only 1 and a half years, I left my dream job — teaching high school Drama. I grew up performing in Equity dinner theatre and being a “theatre kid.” Theatre was joy and lifeblood. Theatre was light shining through the cracks. Theatre was belonging and quiet. Despite all that, leaving my dream job was the safer thing. Dreams are tender and must be held. Sewn thread by thread by thread. Detailed with Chantilly lace and sequence and a hundred beaded buttons that stretched from hips to neck. Tailored to fit. Precious beyond repair. Beautifully fragile and strong.

Read entire post here.

My Mother’s Guitar

A Gratitude Conversation With Roxanne Schroeder-Arce

Roxanne Schroeder-Arce is a teacher, scholar, administrator, arts advocate, playwright, and director. She has was named Dean of the Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts and Professor at Ohio University in 2025. Before OHIO, she was Associate Dean of UTeach Fine Arts and Associate Professor of Theatre Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Her theatre practice is integral to her pedagogy. Schroeder-Arce’s bilingual plays have been presented to children and families in theatres around the United States. Her plays Señora Tortuga, Legend of the Poinsettia, Sangre de un Ángel, Mariachi Girl and Yana Wana’s Legend of the Bluebonnet (co-authored with María F. Rocha) are available through Dramatic Publishing. Her newest work, Lyric and the Keys, with music and lyrics by Jenn Hartmann Luck, premiered at the Magik Theatre in September, 2024. Professor Schroeder-Arce’s research interests include culturally responsive theatre education and Latino/a/x theatre for young audiences related to teacher training. She has published articles in journals such as Youth Theatre Journal, TYA Today, Theatre Topics, and Gestos. She has taught workshops on issues of diversity in theatre for young audiences and culturally responsive teaching artistry throughout the Americas and beyond. — Roxanne’s Website

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

Weekly Wide-Awake #64

Summer of Soul. The Law of Nature. Drama Teaching. Roxanne Schroeder-Arce.

Summer of Soul

Living the Comma #38

Nature. Power. Emerson.

WANTED WEEK 4

Notes From A Failed High School Drama Teacher

My Mother’s Guitar

A Gratitude Conversation With Roxanne Schroeder-Arce

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

About Katie

Buy the Book!

Categories