Welcome to the

Transformative Language Arts Resources Database!

Did you know that TLAN has assembled a library of resources to help you find collaborators and discover new ways to expand your TLA practice?

The TLAN Resource Database contains a curated selection of books, podcasts, literary magazines, organizations, training programs, and practitioners that do the work of changing the world with words. The database has been designed to help you deepen your knowledge of TLA, broaden your skills, and research methods to amplify your work out in the world.

On this page you'll find an example of the TLAN Resource database. If you're a member, make sure you're logged in, and you can access the full library from the Membership menu or directly through this link: TLAN Member Resources. 

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Recently Added

Drama:

Playback North America

Community, Resources, Workshops

PNA was founded in 2010 to strengthen Playback Theatre in the U.S. and Canada by supporting peer exchange among practitioners. In 2023, PNA expanded its mission: now the network also builds connections between Playback and other embodied and improvisational arts for social benefit. Free to sign up for membership, many resources on the website.

Expressive Writing:

Therapeutic Writing Institute

Certification

TWI was created by Kathleen (Kay) Adams in 2008 as a comprehensive, turn-key distance-learning training institute for facilitators of therapeutic writing. After a rigorous course of study that interweaves core theory, professional development and supervised practice, trainees complete a capstone project and apply for credentials as a Certified Journal Facilitator (or, for licensed psychotherapists, Certified Journal Therapist).

Storytelling

Kamishibai Storytelling

Article

Article detailing form and history of the Japanese form of storytelling Kamishibai, a visual and oral form of storytelling, and part of a long tradition of oral folk literature in Asia.

Highlighted Selections from the TLAN Resource Database

Drama

Resources and examples for using the tools of drama and drama therapy to create work that transforms both performers and the audience.

Bread and Puppet Theater

Practitioner

The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. Today, Bread and Puppet continues to be one of the oldest, nonprofit, political theatre companies in the country.

Theatre of the Oppressed

Practitioner

Theatre of the Oppressed NYC partners with community members at local organizations to form theatre troupes. These troupes devise and perform plays based on their challenges confronting economic inequality, racism, and other social, health and human rights injustices. After each performance, actors and audiences engage in theatrical brainstorming – called Forum Theatre – with the aim of catalyzing creative change on the individual, community, and political levels.

Education

Resources for educators, examples of using TLA in the classroom, and lesson planning for student transformation (including examples of DEI+, antiracism, social and ecological activism).

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Book

Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.

Zinn Education Project

Organization, Resources

The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. Our website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and grade level. Based on the approach to history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, our teaching materials emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history

Expressive Writing

Resources on how to do and teach expressive writing (including memoir, biography, autobiography), and journaling.

Therapeutic Writing Institute

Certification

TWI was created by Kathleen (Kay) Adams in 2008 as a comprehensive, turn-key distance-learning training institute for facilitators of therapeutic writing. After a rigorous course of study that interweaves core theory, professional development and supervised practice, trainees complete a capstone project and apply for credentials as a Certified Journal Facilitator (or, for licensed psychotherapists, Certified Journal Therapist).

Writing Alone and With Others

Book

For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. The first part of the book guides the reader through the perils of the solitary writing life: fear, writer's block, and the bad habits of the internal critic. In the second section, Schneider describes the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method, widely used across the U.S. and abroad. Chapters on fiction and poetry address matters of technique and point to further resources, while more than a hundred writing exercises offer specific ways to jumpstart the blocked and stretch the rut-stuck. Schneider's innovative teaching method will refresh the experienced writer and encourage the beginner.

Facilitation

Resources on best practices, toolboxes and guides on how facilitating in-person and online groups.

The Art of Facilitation

Classes

Facilitation classes led by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Joy Roulier Sawyer. Our comprehensive class will help you facilitate workshops, classes, meetings, collaborations, events, coaching sessions, and so much more. We'll help you learn to stay true to your values and ethics, as well as to work mindfully with purpose, people, and places where you facilitate. This deep immersion into leadership training can also strengthen your ability to help others find their voices, vision, and direction

Training for Change

Training, Resources

Training for Change is a training and capacity building organization for activists and organizers. We believe strong training and group facilitation is vital to movement building for social justice and radical change. We’re adept at cross-cultural work and bring an awareness of power, identity, and conflict to every workshop we do. As an organization, we’re committed to supporting historically marginalized communities in the U.S. and across the world, including Indigenous, Black, and other people of color, working class and poor communities, and women, femme, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks. Excellent tools and resources for facilitators to use in their own groups.

Music

Resources in songwriting and using music for social change and healing.

Brave Voice

Retreats, Consulting

Founded by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Kelley Hunt, Brave Voice embraces finding, developing and sharing our voices—on the page or out loud—to bring greater vision and resilience to our lives, workplaces, and communities. We know how opening our voice through writing, singing and songwriting enhances our lives, work, and world.

Taina Asili

Practioner, Educator

Taína Asili, a dynamic New York-based Puerto Rican singer, composer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Taína Asili earned a Master of Arts degree in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, where she developed the curriculum that has become the foundation for the art and social change educational workshops she facilitates with youth and adults today.


Narrative Theory, Therapy & Medicine

Resources on sociological, medical and other therapeutic models that study how stories help people make sense of the world, and how people make sense of stories.

The Dulwich Centre

Resources, Training, Member Organization

Founded in 1983, the Dulwich Centre is an innovative home for narrative therapy, community work, training and publishing. We are also a hub for a growing community of international practitioners.

Narrative Theory

Article

Article from Ohio State University defining Narrative theory as a field.

Oral History & Documentary Practices

Resources on data collection, research and nonfiction presentation, such as ethnography, autoethnography, and creative nonfiction styles (for memoir, see Expressive Writing).

StoryCorps

Organization, Resources

StoryCorps is committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters. The organization is a resource for recording your own or a loved one’s story through the StoryCorps app and other tools. They have also launched initiatives to record stories in specific communities including: conversations between people who don’t agree politically; military voices; and stories of refugees, asylees, immigrants and Muslims living in the United States.

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

Book

Perhaps Studs Terkel’s best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a moving snapshot of people’s feelings about their working lives, as well as a timeless look at how work fits into American life

Poetry

Resources in writing poetry, performing spoken word, and poetry therapy.

Calgary Spoken Word Society

Organization, Resources

The Calgary Spoken Word Society was created in November 2003 by poet Sheri-D Wilson. Influenced by its founder's passion, the Society's vision is to develop a forum for the dissemination and promotion of Spoken Word Poetry locally, provincially, nationally and internationally, through performance and education. Excellent writing prompts through the Omniverse Project and monthly slams in Calgary.

Poetry as Survival

Book

Poetry as Survival is a complex and lucid analysis of the powerful role poetry can play in confronting, surviving, and transcending pain and suffering. As a poet who has experienced considerable trauma, Gregory Orr refers to the damaging experiences of his past and to the role poetry played in his ability to recover and survive. His personal narrative makes all the more poignant and vivid Orr's claims for lyric poetry's power as a tool for healing.

Storytelling

Examples and resources for interpreting, telling, and revising traditional folk tales, myths and fairy tales.

Joseph Campbell Foundation

Resources, Workshops, Podcast

The Joseph Campbell Foundation invites you to experience the power of myth. Building on the work of Joseph Campbell, we offer resources and community for those who hear that call to adventure. Offers workshops and graduate certificate through Pacifica Graduate Institute, reading lists, study guides, a podcast and other resources.

This American Life

Radio, Podcast

This American Life is a weekly public radio program and podcast. Each week we choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme. Mostly we do journalism, but an entertaining kind of journalism that’s built around plot. In other words, stories! Our favorite sorts of stories have compelling people at the center of them, funny moments, big feelings, surprising plot twists, and interesting ideas. Like little movies for radio.

TLA in Community

Resources on making a living, creating community and working towards a just world as a transformative language artist.

The Power of Story

Article

How might we embrace stories and storytelling as a practice for remembering and re-activating community, especially amidst the disparities endured by people of color? How might stories help us understand the way through the problems that confront us—the problems that persist? If we should look to stories as a way forward, whose stories will we seek out and lift up to be heard?

Terrain

Independent magazine, Ecological activism

With a focus on place, climate, and justice, Terrain.org is an independent magazine of literature, artwork, commentary, and design founded in 1997.

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