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- EIN 76-0338549
- (713) 523-3877
- 1523 West Main Houston TX 77006 USA
- http://www.witshouston.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Arts & Culture, Arts Education, Arts Services, Education, Elementary & Secondary Schools, Literacy
Mission: WITS revolutionizes the way reading and writing are taught, nurturing the growth of the imagination and awakening students to the adventures of language. WITS serves over 17,000 students and their teachers each year by placing professional writers in schools, community centers, homeless shelters, hospitals, and other community settings. Writers provide long-term creative writing instruction to children and encourage critical thinking, creativity, and personal responsibility. Over 90% of these workshops are in low-income classrooms. As educators and artists, WITS choose to invest our time and resources in building a future that embraces and develops the gifts of all children. WITS was founded in 1983 at the University of Houston and continues to serve children in an expanding variety of social circumstances. WITS believes that every child deserves a holistic education that encourages personal responsibility and a sense of community.
Programs: In 2013-2014, wits professional writers engaged 28,126 children and teachers in the pleasure and power of reading and writing. Wits programs took place in schools, libraries, museums, parks, hospitals, community centers, and summer camps. With a proven model of success, wits programs provides a lasting impact on student writing skills, self-esteem, test scores, and creativity. Wits creative programs provided long-term creative writing instruction to 13,076 k-12 students in student classrooms. Wits community programs reached and additional 2,180 students in after-school, community-based settings. Wits performance programs served more than 1,325 teens, providing public workshops, performance poetry competitions, and opportunities to represent houston locally and nationaly through the meta-four houston team.
wits camp programs taught 2,975 children and youth during the summer season, nurturing storytelling, literacy, and creative learning.
wits collaborative provided job-embedded coaching to 7,845 teachers, sharing innovative lessons with teaching teams. The wits alliance shared best practices with 720 writers and leaders of national writers-in-the-schools programs, helping to grow and replicate the wits teaching model.