In 2015, school and community leaders from other corners of the world began inviting me to consult with them on the development of their own writing studios shortly after the publication of my first book, Make Writing. That book was the result of action research that I conducted in Studio and inside of the classrooms where I’ve served as a professional learning facilitator for writing teachers over the last two decades. That learning continues, and additional books have followed.  In 2024, several of the documentation projects completed during Studio sessions were included in this digital documentation notebook that supplements my newest release, The Writing Teacher’s Guide to Pedagogical Documentation: Rethinking How We Assess Learners and Learning. If you’re someone who has read my work, then you may appreciate how my thinking and practice continues to deepen and evolve over time.

Pop-Up Studios are held in school districts and through different community-based organizations who invite me in to work with kids and teachers too, if they choose. These events unfold over the course of single days or entire weeks. Once they end, I make myself available for return site visits and virtual conversations, as needed. Sometimes, these experiences are designed for K-12 writers and designers alone. More often, they’re also learning labs for teachers and leaders who have an interest in observing multimodal composers, documentarians, and action researchers at work.

Every experience I create is unique to the organization I serve. Some organizations have established makerspaces. Others have classrooms, libraries, or community rooms that I’ve been invited to transform temporarily, and I am more than happy to do this. Most organizations run Pop Up Studios as summer camp experiences, and others offer them during the school year, within or adjacent to the writing workshops that English or ELA teachers facilitate.