Missoula Writing Collaborative

We teach kids to love to write

Missoula Writing Collaborative

The Missoula Writing Collaborative teaches literary competence, critical thinking, cultural awareness, and artistic joy through creative writing.

We place writers in school classrooms, after-school programs, youth homes and other venues to show young people the power of words and help them find their voices as writers. We are a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization committed to reaching the underserved members of our society.

Each year we teach over 1500 kids to love to write.

The Missoula Writing Collaborative is a proud member of The WITS Alliance: A professional network of literary arts education programs and individuals. Learn more at http://witsalliance.org/.

Watch our Mini-documentary!

The Missoula Writing Collaborative has been working in classrooms in Western Montana since 1994, and have even worked in Hawaii and Alaska! In our 22 years we've worked with more than 35,000 students in Western Montana classrooms.



Missoula Chilren’s Poetry Map

In 2018, the Missoula Writing Collaborative collected over 500 poems about the many different places--mountainsides, parks, carousels, waterslides-- that kids know and love around Missoula. With help from Geodata Services and Xplorer Maps, we transformed the poems, drawings, and recordings from each student into an interactive Missoula Children's Poetry Map which you can explore here: https://arcg.is/jynGj

This week’s Monday Poem

Monday Poem: “Star Light” by Trevor

This poem was read by  Arlee 5th grader Trevor at the annual reading at Salish and Kootenai College on November 19th:

the stars can lead you to
where you want to go
but they can take you away
they can push you up
they can pull you down
the stars are helpful
and not forgiving
some can love some can hate
some can make you fly
some can take everything away
some stars are just stars
some stars need help
some stars give health
some stars hide
some stars make you do big things
some stars make you think you are nothing
some stars fly
some stars stay a little while
some stars trap you
some stars free you
some stars pull you where you shouldn’t be
some stars take you away from somewhere
some stars will you to destroy the world
some stars will protect you from that
some stars want to be your friend
some stars want to be mean to you
don’t be that kind of person
be nice
be loving
be forgiving
be good
don’t be mean

More Poems