Catherine Pikula, Writer
Catherine Pikula received a BA in literature from Bennington College and will graduate with an MFA in poetry from NYU where she is a Writers in the Public Schools Fellow. She is a teaching artist with Teachers & Writers Collaborative, a private tutor with Steps Tutoring, and classroom tutor as part of the America Reads and Counts program. This summer she will teach an introductory level creative writing course to undergraduates and high school seniors at NYU.
TATIP Work
Catherine has been interning at PS 84 in Brooklyn with CWP Mentor Teaching Artists Felipe Galindo and Molly Goldman.
“As an advanced trainee, I came to TATIP with the desire to strengthen my teaching performance and better understand the relationship between my artistic and teaching practices. Through the professional development trainings, I have learned techniques and strategies for scaffolding individual lesson plans and residency plans to work toward an overarching objective more holistically.”
“I observed teaching artists, Felipe Galindo and Molly Goldman, during their poetry and visual arts residency at P.S. 84 Jose De Diego School in Williamsburg, which sparked several lesson plan ideas, and served as the model for how co-teachers can support each other in the classroom, in their planning, and teaching, to create harmony between the different art forms.”
Most Memorable TATIP Moment
“The most memorable TATIP day was the seminar on social justice, as the connection between my teaching and artistic practices came into focus.”
“We were brainstorming, using a graphic organizer featuring an empty human body. We were told to record in the space around the body, characteristics or facts of our identity that are visible to others. Inside the body, we were told to record characteristics, moments, facts of our identity that are not visible.”
“In this moment I was forced to confront the complexity of my identity, the privilege of my white face as well as the struggles associated with my gender, sexuality, and Catholic upbringing. The central inquiry of my work as a teacher and artist are deeply related to the practices of empathy, compassion, and community building. I am thrilled to have discovered my role as a teacher and artist can be to empower young people to find strength in their own voices, to fine tune their voices with literary devices, and to share with and unite their communities.”
Find out more about Catherine here:
Check out Catherine’s Teaching Path she created with her partners Sarah Chichester and Saundra Norton.
Interested in TATIP? Find out more about our 2016-17 Program!
See more of our 2015-16 Graduates in the 2016 TATIP Anthology!
