Some November-specific TLA resources
On first Wednesdays we share posts that illustrate Transformative Language Arts in practice.
This week we’re offering a gathering of resources by Amanda Lascon, first-generation Filipina-American writer, photographer, historian and teaching artist and long-time member of the TLA community.
We invite comments, questions, conversations and restacks. If you like what you read, click the heart or share us with friends!
November is Native American Heritage Month and a time to celebrate harvest and abundance on Thanksgiving. I recently ordered Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story, a children’s picture book focused on the first Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective. It is written and illustrated by four Indigenous creators: Danielle Greendeer (Mashpee Wampanoag), Anthony Perry (Chickasaw), Alexis Bunten (Unangan/Yup’ik) and Garry Meeches Sr. (Anishinaabe). As the mom of a toddler, I want my child to have a fuller perspective than the stories I grew up with.
Here are some more resources from the TLA Resource Database (full database accessible to members) to expand your worldview and story.
StoryCorps: StoryCorps is committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters. The organization is a resource for recording your own or a loved one’s story through the StoryCorps app and other tools. They have also launched initiatives to record stories in specific communities including: conversations between people who don’t agree politically; military voices; and stories of refugees, asylees, immigrants and Muslims living in the United States. This year Butterball (of Butterball Turkey) is partnering with StoryCorps to invite people across America to have meaningful conversations about their Thanksgiving traditions.
Native American Poetry & Culture: A selection of poets, poems, and articles exploring the Native American experience. Poetry Foundation editors have curated this collection of Native American poets, both established and widely read ones along with voices of a new generation, from some of the many US tribes. Their poems bear historical witness, demonstrate the strength of the Native American spirit, argue crucial political and social issues, while illuminating a vibrant cultural heritage.
National Museum of the American Indian: A diverse and multifaceted cultural and educational enterprise, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is an active and visible component of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum complex. The NMAI cares for one of the world’s most expansive collections of Native artifacts, including objects, photographs, archives, and media covering the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown: The landmark, bestselling account of the crimes against American Indians during the 19th century, now on its 50th Anniversary. First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown’s eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of American Indians during the second half of the nineteenth century.
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, Kyle T. Mays: The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America.
Amanda Faye Lacson is a first-generation Filipina-American writer, photographer, historian and teaching artist. In all of her work, she is curious about filling in the missing narratives and reclaiming space in a colonized world.
Explore transformative language with us: upcoming TLAN events & classes
Check out our classes and free community events. Scholarships for classes are available.
Free Community Events
Our Grandmothers on the Page-OPEN READINGS
12 November 2025 7:00 PM • online • Free and open to all • Writers from Kelly DuMar’s TLAN Fall writing workshop, Putting Our Grandmothers on the Page will read new writing about grandmother ancestry. Join us!
Transformative Language Arts Network Community Circles
16 Nov 2025 5:00-6:30 PM (EDT) • online • Free and open to all • We’re gathering to have a conversation around our collective feelings of tenderness and exhaustion that could lead to, as one former participant said, “...connection points—a deeper heartwork of listening and sharing.” Join us!
07 Dec 2025 5:00-6:30 PM (EDT) • online • Free and open to all • Performances and presentations of their work by TLAN members followed by an artist talkback. Join us!
Classes and Workshops
New Years Revolution: Writing Toward the World We Deserve // with Tasjha Dixon
07 January 2026 (CST) • Online • 8 week course
Meditate, Move, & Create // with Christina M. Rau
07 January 2026 7:00 PM • online • 90 minute workshop
Future Casting: Writing Towards a Just World Vision // with Caits Meissner
14 January 2026 • Online • 8 week course
TLA: This is How It Started. This is How It’s Going. // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
17 January 2026 2:00 PM (CST) • online • 2 hour workshop
The (Extra)Ordinary Moment: The Art and Craft of Micro-Memoir // with Elizabeth Lukács Chesla
28 January 2026 • Online • 4 week course
Writing Hope: Turning to the Page in Difficult Times // with Angie Ebba
04 March 2026 • Online • 6 week course
Foundations of Facilitation // with Amanda Faye Lacson & Tracie Nichols
04 March 2026 • online • 8 week course (required for the Certificate in TLA Foundations)
Breathing into Bloom: A Spring Writing Practice for Renewal // with Tasjha Dixon
29 April 2026 (CDT) • Online • 4 week course
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