End-Of-Year-Colloquia: An Exhibition by Teacher's Institute Fellows & Reading by Poet Patricia Smith & YA Novelist Rita Williams-Garcia

Join the Ed Factory's Teachers Institute for an art exhibit of dynamic visual and audio personal documentaries by Institute fellows who will tell the story of what it's like to try and build innovative, democratic learning environments within today's culture of high stakes testing and educational standardization. 

Patricia Smith, Poet

Patricia Smith's poetry has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” Smith is a renaissance artist of unmistakable signature, recognized as a force in the fields of poetry, playwriting, fiction, performance, and creative collaboration. 

Smith is a professor of creative writing at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and she the author of six critically-acclaimed volumes of poetry, among them Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the National Book Award finalist Blood Dazzler (read excerpts here), and Teahouse of the Almighty ( a National Poetry Series winner), both from Minnesota's own Coffee House Press.

Rita Williams-Garcia, Novelist

Rita Williams-Garcia is author of One Crazy Summer, Jumped and over dozens of award-winning novels and short stories. Williams-Garcia was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Newbery Honor Award (2011), Coretta Scott King Award, Soctt O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and the PEN/Norma Klein Award.