Works by Swope include ''I Am a Pencil: A Teacher, His Kids, and Their World of Stories'', a memoir recounting three years Swope spent teaching writing students at a Queens, New York, public school.
''I Am a Pencil'' won a 2005 Christopher Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, The Bechtel Prize, and was "named one of the best books of 2004 by ''Publishers Weekly''."
