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We interviewed Frank Pancucci, project coordinator and counselor at the Southern California American Indian Resource Center (SCAIR), about the organization and the communities it serves. Jim Ruland, our PITC host teacher, joined us to talk about running a creative writing community residency with SCAIR.

PITC: Can you tell us about SCAIR and about its programming?

Animo Film & Theatre Arts Charter School
Belmont
Birmingham
Cleveland
Crenshaw
Culver City
Del Rey
Downtown Magnets
Dorsey
Fairfax
Fremont
Grant
Hamilton
Jefferson
Lynwood
Manual Arts
Marshall
Narbonne
North Hollywood
Palisades
Roosevelt
San Fernando
Santa Monica
South Gate
University
Venice
Wilson

SARAH ARSONE:  Poet / essayist / journalist. Books of poetry include Guilty and Zen and the Art of Changing Diapers

JACKIE AUSTIN: Journalist, screenwriter, essayist.

LILI BARSHA: Author of 365 Days of Humiliation and Haunted Cabaret, an annual fright play.

MICHAEL CIRELLI: Performance poet, National Poetry Slam finalist, author of numerous anthologized poems and chapbooks

“We learned to write what we feel without fear.”
--Student, Downtown Magnet High School

“The program let my students recognize that authors are ‘regular’ people (with talent) and helped them to see the talent within themselves.”
--Sarah Schact, Teacher, Culver City High School

PEN in the Classroom is funded by the Rosenthal Family Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation, the Herb Alpert Foundation, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the Winnick Family Foundation. PITC has also received support from Los Angeles Unified School District, which has included PEN in the Classroom in its Arts Community Partnership Network.

After receiving a request for a PITC residency, the PEN office will coordinate a residency.   PITC instructors are asked to align their lesson plans with the California Arts & Language Content Standards.  Instructors are selected from PEN’s diverse membership to best match the needs of the school where they will complete their residency.  Working with the classroom teacher, the PITC instructor will develop a tailored curriculum.  An instructor’s residency is comprised of a teacher/writer meeting; in-class writing workshops; publication of a student a

 Since 1995, PEN in the Classroom (PITC) has helped thousands of Southern California high school students discover the power of their unique voices by sending professional writers into their classrooms for creative writing residencies.