[Brackets], Big News, & Bold Writing
This season is full of momentum at Writing with Design, from Cringe Cup fun to exciting conference news and summer learning plans.
Whether you’re like Amber and still cheering on your team (Boomer Sooner!) or like Tabitha and filled out your bracket based on mascot fight logic (no one can beat the spears of the Spartans),🏀 March is made for brackets, bold opinions, and fierce competition.
That same competitive energy has made its way into WwD’s Cringe Cup, where the 16 cringiest student writing habits are going head-to-head.
We’re down to the Elite 8, and your votes will decide which writing misstep advances to the Final Four next week.
Writing with Design is bringing writing workshops to you, both virtually and in person. These sessions will be packed with practical strategies, classroom-ready tools, and fresh inspiration to help make writing instruction clearer, stronger, and more doable in the year ahead.
Whether you join us from home or at a live event, we can’t wait to help you build momentum and head into the school year ready to make writing flip, not flop.
Want to help us plan these workshops? Fill out our quick Flip Not Flop Summer Workshop Interest Form to let us know what kinds of sessions, formats, dates, and locations would be most helpful to you.
Stay tuned for dates, registration details, and more information coming soon.
We’re almost at 1,000 followers on Facebook. We want to celebrate with prizes for individual followers and freebies for everyone as we reach this exciting milestone.
Here’s how it works:
At 800 followers:
🌟 One follower will win a $15 Starbucks gift card.
🌟 For the whole community, we’ll release a free Skill Focus Activity (SFA) for everyone to enjoy.
At 900 followers:
🌟 One follower will win a $25 Amazon gift card and one free seat to a virtual Flip Not Flop summer workshop.
🌟 For the whole community, we’ll release a mini teacher bundle featuring a series of SFA’s that are not yet available for purchase.
At 1,000 followers:
One follower will win our grand prize bundle
🌟 A $40 gift card to the store of their choice
🌟 Two free seats to a virtual Flip Not Flop summer workshop for the winner and a friend
🌟 A Student Writer Guide of their choice
🤩 And for the whole community, we’ll release a special bonus freebie to celebrate.
👉 Follow us on Facebook, invite your educator friends, and help us get to 1,000! If you find our resources helpful, this is a simple yet powerful way to support our work and help us reach more teachers who need it.
This conference season has brought meaningful opportunities for Writing with Design to connect with educators across the country, and we are so grateful for the conversations, encouragement, and momentum these events have sparked. One of our favorite parts is getting to reconnect with administrators and teachers from our partner schools and celebrate the work they are doing.
At ESEA in Denver last month, we had the opportunity to connect with hundreds of educators, district leaders, and literacy champions, both at our booth and during our presentation, From Blank Pages to Brave Voices. Our session centered on the power of narrative to build community, strengthen comprehension, and grow student voice. It was a joy to share one of our favorite narrative approaches, the Power of the Pause, which helps prevent those all-too-familiar “and then, and then, and then” narratives. We were honored to have the zone superintendent and several principals from Sand Creek Zone of District 49 in Colorado Springs share highlights of their two-year implementation of Writing with Design and the positive changes they are observing in writing achievement across their district, from kindergarten through high school.
At the booth, Plinko was a big hit as we talked with educators about the real challenges schools face with writing instruction and how Writing with Design helps make writing clearer, more teachable, and more doable across classrooms. We left ESEA encouraged by the number of teachers and leaders looking for writing instruction that is both practical and powerful.
We are also excited to share that Writing with Design has been selected to present at the 2026 WIDA Annual Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. WIDA’s theme this year, “Building Gateways to Colaboración,” feels especially fitting as we look ahead to sharing how collaborative writing routines can strengthen language development and literacy outcomes for multilingual learners.
Our session, The 10-Minute Shift: Collaborative Writing that Builds Language and Literacy, will focus on how H-POP and other sentence-building routines can help create clearer structure, stronger participation, and more daily opportunities for students to write. The session will also feature Bayless School District, a St. Louis County district serving nearly 400 multilingual learners and close to 100 newcomers each year.
We are honored to share this work at WIDA and look forward to connecting with more educators who are committed to building stronger outcomes for multilingual learners.
Lisa Lizak was the kind of teacher students never forget. She was known for her festive spirit, her creativity, and her unwavering dedication to helping students learn and love literature. With a personal collection of more than 2,000 books and a heart fully devoted to children, Lisa’s classroom was a place of wonder, joy, and possibility, where reading and writing came to life
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“Lisa was one of those teachers who made learning magical. She poured herself into her students, brought so much imagination and joy into learning, and reminded all of us that teaching can be rigorous, creative, and full of heart. When cancer took her too soon, I wanted to create something that would keep her incredible impact going,” Amber shared.
The Lisa Lizak Legacy in Literacy Award carries Lisa’s legacy forward in the most Lisa way possible: by celebrating a teacher who brings creativity, joy, and a love of literacy to the students and colleagues they serve. This award honors an educator who reflects the same deep commitment to literacy that Lisa brought to every student and fellow teacher she encountered.
In honor of Lisa’s life and impact, this award celebrates teachers who go beyond instruction to build a culture of creativity, inspire a love of literacy, and help students grow as readers and writers every day.
Quick Q&A
Who can nominate?
Teachers and administrators are invited to submit nominations.
Who can be nominated?
Any educator who reflects Lisa’s spirit through creativity, joy, and a deep commitment to literacy instruction.
What does the winner receive?
The selected educator will receive a $500 award: $250 for classroom writing resources and $250 for personal use.
When is the nomination window?
Nominations will be accepted from March 31 through April 30.
When will the winner be announced?
The winner will be announced on the third Monday in May. This year, that will be May 18, 2026.
Help us recognize an educator who carries Lisa’s spirit forward and leaves a lasting mark on readers and writers.
