Welcome

“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.” – W.E.B. DuBois

Read inspiring and provocative works of literature and philosophy. Explore fundamental questions about justice, politics, and human nature. Meet community leaders in New Haven and ask them how they view the big questions. Gain confidence discussing these issues in college seminars taught by Yale faculty, and get a head start in college-level writing. Make new friends while living in Yale dorms for two weeks of the summer before your junior or senior year in high school. Take advantage of help in preparing to apply to colleges. 

Citizens Thinkers Writers is a free program open to rising juniors and seniors in New Haven’s public schools. We give preference to students who would be first in their families to attend a four-year college. Read more…

News

October 24, 2022
On October 19, 2022 Citizens Thinkers Writers alumnus Henry J. Seyue read Langston Hughes’ poem, “I, Too” at the National Endowment for the Humanities’ annual Jefferson...
August 22, 2022
Students in this summer’s Citizens Thinkers Writers program had the opportunity to engage in open discussions with New Haven community leaders who represent a wide variety of...
A group of students perform Antigone together in the library
July 25, 2022
From July 10th-22nd, 2022, Citizens Thinkers Writers welcomed eleven rising seniors from New Haven public schools to Yale’s campus to hold in-person programming for the first...