Our Programming with Garrison Elementary School
We work with Garrison Elementary students weekly on Wednesdays, teaching them creative writing through engaging and exciting exercises and prompts. At the end of our semester-long program, students leave with culminating anthologies of the work they've created with Write to Right. Learn more about our work below!
Overview
STRUCTURE: weekly, hour-long, in-person workshops from January to May. Teaching with Write to Right's own curriculum, students engaged in writing exercises to build their imaginative skills and develop their self-expression. Workshops result in culminating anthology each student receives.
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AGES: Third graders from an underserved school in DC. We've loved watching their ability to express themselves improve and see how excited they get about the Write to Right workshops and the programming!
MATERIALS: each student received a notebook and writing utensils. All materials were provided for students. Verbal stories created by the group are transcribed by volunteers and printed out after each session to give to students at the following workshop.
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HIGHLIGHTS: Playing Fortunately-Unfortunately as a large group and seeing all the kids waving their hands in the air wanting to contribute to the story and further develop the plot.
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VOLUNTEERS: 2-3 trained student writing instructors taught each workshop, in an instructor student ratio of 1:5. These volunteers were trained on the curriculum ahead of the workshops. They led the activities, and provided guiding questions to help students with their pieces during writing time. Our volunteers also transcribe and record the verbal stories we create as a group, and print them out to distribute to students at following workshops. We've loved seeing our close our student writing instructors and our students become!
Skye, 3rd grade Garrison Elementary student in Write to Right workshops
“The teachers support us so much and find creative and interesting things for us to do in our writing. I love coming to them with questions because they are always able to help me keep going in my writing! I’m so happy with the pieces I create!"
Alex, 3rd grade Garrison Elementary student in Write to Right workshops
"I have so much fun coming to Write to Right every week. I enjoy all the writing we work on, as it reminds me of different social issues and the workshops give me the tools to express my thoughts on those social issues. I will miss Write to Right over the summer!"
Sterling Pino-DeGale, director of program
"Write to Right embraces [our] goal of empowering youth leadership and giving back to the community. Students in every classroom level I have been a part of have struggled with writing, but Write to Right helps to solve a lot of these problems by providing a low-stakes environment to have fun with writing."
