I haven't written in a while so let me start from our last few workshops and work my way forward....

Our last workshops were spent making executive decesions for the publication...

The color, the title, the logo, the cover artwork, workshopping the publication, food and drinks for the celebration.

During these workshops we did do a little bit of writing. We did a collaborative list poem about Comfort Foods and a collaborative response to the Virgina Tech Shootings, and a short writing prompt on what writing is/what it means to me. All of the writing from these workshops ended up in the publication.

This semester we had 48 women attend our 11 weekly workshops. We had the opportunity to have the LCDC participate in a very cool project called "Women with Wings." We did this during what would have been our 12th week at the LCDC. If you would like to see what this project is all about I suggest checking out this website: http://www.womenwithwingsproject.org/home.html

During the week and weekend Valerie and I were hard at work putting together the publication for this semester which was titled: The Inside Word

On May 9th, we had our publication celebration. Like last time we only had three women who had participated and had their writing included in the publication. The three women who were our celebration leaders did a fine job of reading their writing and encouraging others to read. Our audience was pretty much full, most of the women who were allowed ended up coming. I think that overall the publication turned out alright.

Now that summer has begun I won't be around the office too much. I spent a few hours in there on Tuesday getting the publication  ready to be sent out. I will be working to frantically get my research project done before my summer schedule becomes extremely hectic.

Well, I believe this is my last time blogging. Good luck to the interns next year, and have a great (and safe) summer every one!

Life has been flying by these past couple of weeks. It's hard to believe that the semester is nearing its end! It seems like only yesterday that I was interviewing for this internship, and now its almost over...tear.

I don't have a whole lot to say because I wasn't able to attend last weeks workshop but I'll de-brief on what I know happened. Tobi and Valerie were the facilitators for last week. From what I heard the women were a little bit squirrely but who wouldn't be at 630 pm in a jail. They did a collaborative poem, "The world would change if..." as well as some work with superheroes and picking a power. I haven't seen any pictures for the Speak Out! logo or for the publication cover for that matter, which concerns me a little bit. I'll have to remind the women that we do allow artwork and in fact like to have it included!

I've been working on getting some of the publication materials together...well, more like putting the womens work into a folder that will eventually become the publication. At this weeks workshop we will hopefully start to write the intro to our book or at least edit and workshop some of the writing they have been doing.

I've been doing some research for my project on media literacy and have been finding some great articles. English Journal had a particularly fascinating article on teaching film as film--the author gave a thourough explanation about how teaching film as film (not as literature) can enhance students understanding of literary theory. It was a great article that I actually printed off for my collegues to read at our next meeting.

I will hopefully have more to talk about after our next workshop....Happy Spring!!

If you are wondering where on earth my blog has been I am here to assure you that I haven't run away to Tahiti (though i'd like to), I was just caught up in the pre-spring break chaos. I will try and update everyone on the past month (yikes!) in this entry.

The Wednesday before spring break we had our sixth workshop. Tobi and I were the facilitators that week, and we had a fairly decent turnout. About 10 women were in attendance, only one woman was new. Our theme for the night was "travel" and we brought in pictures, postcards, and did a collaborative poem about where we will be in 2010. We had some great writing with the pictures, it was a lighthearted exercise and was a great way to kick off the workshop. Our collaborative poem as always solicited some funny and some serious responses. I enjoyed listening to where the women thought they would be in 2010. We ended the night with a character development exercise. The women were asked to answer some basic questions about two characters they were supposed to have created in their minds. Some of the questions were: name, occupation, family, residence, hobby, etc. Once they had come up with two characters Tobi passed out post cards and asked the women to write a postcard from one charcter to another. The women had a hard time with this, but ended up writing some interesting letters.

The friday before spring break Tobi, Pam Coke, JD Williams and I headed down to Colorado Springs to present at the CLAS conference where we did a group presentation. Tobi talked about the ethics of zines in a classroom and JD and I discussed a project that we had completed in Pam's Teaching Reading class. The project was on Media literacy. All in all the conference ran very smoothly and I had a great time working with some great people!

Spring break was wonderful, I spent my week in London sightseeing and checking out all of the "nerdy" English major sights. I returned from spring beak only to have another week of fun ahead of me with some visitors from home. Valerie and Tobi were the facilitators for our seventh workshop. They did a haiku excercise which they seemed to really like.

Week eight was great. Valerie and I were the facilitators this week. We opened be passing out a flyer for a Speak Out! logo to go on our publication in the future. There are so many talented artists in the LCDC that we thought we should have a "competition" in order to chose a logo. We invited the women to share any writing they had done but quickly got to writing. Our theme for the week was "women." We did our For Strong Women poem by Marge Piercy which is usually a hit with the women. We discussed what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a strong woman. We had some great writing come from this prompt. One of the women wrote about how being a strong woman means being comfortable in your own skin which seemed like an appropriate transition to our next prompt. We read a poem called Plastic Princess by Stephanie Anderson (a 12 year old girl). The poem is about the negative influences that Barbie has on young girls. We had a very interesting discussion on body image and the media. Since many of the women in the workshop are mothers themselves we had a lenghty discussion about allowing their daughters to play with Barbie and what Barbie represents. It was interesting to listen to the various opinoins that many women had. Some were very against Barbie and some believed that playing with Barbie's had nothing to do with how young girls (and boys) viewed themselves. It was nice to have a discussion about something that affects many women. We had the women free write on the poem. One women wrote a letter to her daughter telling her how its not looks that matter, it's whats on the inside that matters. Another women wrote a poem called F-you Barbie, it was very cleverly written.  We ended the night with another character sketch activity. This time we had questions that the women were supposed to answer on the back of a notecard...on the front of the notecard was a face that went with the character they were sketching.  Once they answered the questions about their person they passed their card to the right and the person who now had their card was supposed to write a letter to the person on the notecard. Again the women struggled with this but came up with some interesting writing. The women seemed to enjoy the workshop as a whole which was nice.

I have been researching for my bibliography on media literacy and have found some interesting articles that will certainly be of use to me when i have my own classroom.  Speaking of research I need to find an article that I can share at our next staff meeting....more to come next week!

Our fourth workshop went very well this week. Valerie and I were a little skeptical when we met at the coffee shop because we werent too sure how the night would go. We had intended to have a shorter workshop, about an hour, but we ended up going fairly close to the hour and a half time. We got to the jail a little bit early and brought the women down right away. We had 14 women, three were new. It was a fairly interesting dynamic with one of the new women. She was very anxious/excited to be there but couldn't really control her anxieties and was constantly interrupting or needing attention. At first I was ok with her being excited about the workshop but after a while I could tell that the other women were getting irritated with her comments and talking out of turn. It's interesting because usually I'm ok with a few people bouncing ideas back and forth between each other and not always raising their hands etc. but this particular workshop I had to ask everyone to be respectful and wait to be called on or something to that effect.

We had some interesting prompts that focused on "source texts." Valerie and I had been noticing how many women use personal experience to write. We listed sources for inspiration on the board and briefly discussed  how we could use them in writing. Then we created a prompt that consisted of a first line: "While showering yesterday I noticed..." and a last line: "I think I'm getting closer to the mountain top..." The point of the prompt  was to fill in the middle section using some of the different source texts we had listed on the board. It was a fairly difficult prompt but the women seemed to respond to it fairly well. We had some writing about literally reaching a moutain top, reaching a goal, going on a journey, using nature to describe an event, etc.

After our source text prompt we took the women into an even more difficult prompt. We put up pictures on the board of a Salvador Dali picture titled "galetea of the spheres."  We had some interesting discussion about the picture and as the women were "thinking aloud" Valerie and I were guiding them if they were straying a little off topic. We did a concept web of the brainstorming process asking them what they first noticed, what was the picture about, is it a happy or sad picture, who is the woman in the picture, etc. They had some interesting responses to the painting such as "the colors in the picture make me think that the woman is sad." Another woman replied to this by saying "I don't think she's sad I think she looks peaceful." And so on and so forth. Once the women seemed to have a grasp of the painting we gave them their prompt: "If the woman were to speak, what would she say?"

Below is the picture that we used taken from the website below.

cfa-www.harvard.edu/~jbattat/images/galatea_o

The responses the women had to this picture and writing prompt were extremely insightful and well written. We ended

with this prompt because the women were getting ansy and we made them work pretty hard. 

More after our next workshop.

 

Its been a busy few weeks here in the CLC. I'll start by giving a run down of the past two workshops and then get into some of the other stuff.

13 women attended workshop # 2 and we had 10 women attend workshop #3 last night. We have been having newcomers each week which is great but leaves me wondering where did our "regulars" go? Our prompts thus far have generated some great writing. We have put Andrea's Prompt box (a gift she left us before graduating) to good use. Valerie has come in with some great writing exercises to get the women thinking about metaphor and  connecting two nouns that may seem completely different in a metaphor through this prompt:

The _________ was strangely similar to the ______________ ....

The women had a lot of fun with this last night. We had responses that created a metaphor between a leprachaun and a storyteller... love and a running shoe...etc. Another promt we used in workshop #2 was similar to the one above in that the women could chose what they wanted to write about. The prompt was "I never understood _______ until _______." Each persons response was different and all of them were excellent.

Something that we (Tobi) did this time that I don't remember doing in the fall was giving the women strategies to "plan" their writing such as brainstorming, clustering/mapping, and freewriting. In doing this we gave the women a skill they could walk away with and use anytime they needed some ideas.

Next week it will just be Valerie and me at the jail which will be interesting and at the same time exciting. I think my biggest worry is that I wont remember where to go if I'm left on my own and then the guards will get angry. Fears aside I am positive that it will be just fine...sorta.

We've had a couple of staff meetings in a row to catch up on IGLP and Speak Out! Last week we read through an article titled "Community Literacy" and gave some reaction to the text. I personally found it very interesting and quite similar to what we are doing here at our own Community Literacy Center. We also discussed our research projects and how they were coming along. I ended up having to switch my topic because it didn't seem to have enough academic research that I could access. I have decided to pursue a project in media literacy becauase there seems to be an abundance of reasons why in the year 2007 I need to be aware of media literacy especially as a future teacher. I will be completing the required annot. bibliography and then putting a multi-genre project spin on the research I find by creating some lesson plans that I would be able to use in a future career.

That's all for now...

Speak Out! started back up again this week at the LCDC. We had a great turnout...12 or 13 women I believe was the total. Right off the bat this group felt different from the fall's. They were very excited and respectful (not to say that the group in the fall wasnt) but they weren't timid about sharing and they gave great constructive feedback. I felt much more comfortable working with this group and I think a lot of that had to do with being a "veteran." We introduced ourselves and talked about the program and got to writing. We did My Name-Sandra Cisneros and Beginnings-Karen Hesse which was a fairly simple prompt becasue writing about where you come from or the origin of your name is someting that everyone can do. We also did an Acrostic poem...which always proves to be hard for me. Laura took the women through that exercise. We wrote up until 8pm which was perfect. The women were very appreciative of us being there which was nice. Valerie and I received some work that the women would like typed and responses too, so that will keep me busy for a while. Everything looks great for this semester. The stage is set for success!

Before going to the LCDC we met at a coffeeshop to discuss not only how the night would run but to talk about an article we would like to write and a Speak Out! "workbook" we  would like to create. The "Workbook" would include genre writing explanations, examples, images, etc. In doing this we would be making our program better for future Speak Out! participants. We are also thinking about asking the women to come up with a speak out logo to put on the workbooks, the publication, and any info sheets regarding the program.

We are full of new and innovative ideas here at the CLC and things are looking great for the new year...

I hope everyone is having a great Friday! We are finally having some warmer weather which is great because I can finally see the lines of the roads again instead of an inch of ice...and its a gorgeous and sunny day outside which puts me in a cheerful mood.

Our Speak Out! program will make its Spring debut at the Detention Center next wednesday where Tobi, Laura, Valerie, and I will do some writing exercises/readings/introductions/etc. Since Andrea has graduated and left us for Texas, we have a new volunteer Valerie. She will be a great addition to our fun loving group. I am looking forward to getting back on track with Speak Out!

We have a new grant writer! "And there was much rejoycing!!! Yaaaay." (That was for Pam)  She (Alyssa)  is already hard at work writing a grant for next years Speak Out! funding...

As the semester wears on, I am sure my entries will be much longer and detailed, especially once we start up Speak Out!  As for right now I'll keep it short and sweet seeing how I have some research for my Annot. Bibliography to do!

Have a safe and relaxing weekend!

 

We have started up our Spring semester at the CLC with lots of great news...

We recieved a grant that will allow us to hire someone who will write grants for the CLC which is great because it means that Amanda, Jessi, and I will be able to spend more time working on our research and IGLP and SpeakOut! community projects.

Our efforts in fundraising for Barnes and Noble surely paid off...at least Tobi's did!! We made way more than anticipated which is great.

SpeakOut! will start up again Jan. 31st, I'm looking forward to heading back to the LCDC--I tend to have nothing to do on Wednesday nights when we aren't there. Our first workshop will be centered around getting to know eachother and doing a few writing exercises about who we are and where we come from.

At our staff meeting on Wednesday Tobi informed me that the SpeakOut! program has been getting a lot of notice. Thanks to the internet people can access our website and read about what we do. Its great that we are getting our name out there and getting noticed for the hard work that staff members and previous staff members have put forth.

There's not a whole lot other than that...its good to be back in the swing of things.

We had our Speak Out! celebration at the LCDC on Wednesday night, there was pizza, pop, veggies, and cake! We arrived to the LCDC around 6 pm and got everything set up, after which I went up to get the authors. We only had three authors present for the reading, which goes to show that as the weeks went by our workshop numbers became less and less. The three women that came had been participants in the workshop early on, and I was so glad that they were able to read their work to their peers. The final publication turned out beautifully, despite some bad copies, I was very impressed and relieved to see that it looked good. We talked with the writers deciding how to begin the reading before Andrea and I went up to get the other women who where going to listen. Of the 54 women in the LCDC at this time we had over half (33 or 34) come to the reading. This number doesn't include the women on lockdown or under surveilance who were not allowed to come. It was great to see so many women interested in participating or just listening to other women read aloud...we all hoped that it wasn't just the pizza that lured them in. Once we got everyone to come down from the pod a woman who essentially led the entire celebration took the audience through the I Believe collaborative poem. The audience wrote on a note card and eventually we reinacted a workshop prompt.

It was a great night, the women were so supportive of eachother, clapping (eventually we got the snap going) and all around seeming to enjoy the night. We had some great volunteers to read the pieces of work  that women who were unable to come had written. As things began to wind down we thanked everyone for coming and took the women back to their respective pods. As the women were leaving they were showing great enthusiasm about the program and were chatting very loudly about participating in Janurary when we start back up again. It's nights like that when you get to see the smiles and pride from people that  you have worked with for quite some time that make all the hard work and frusterations worth it. On that note, good luck with finals everyone, and have a safe and warm winter break!

Now that I have neglected my blog for about three weeks I felt that I should give it some much needed attention especially while I had a few minutes. My last entry was about the publication and having our last workshop so I'll pick up from there....

Well workshop number 10 was great. We had only four people come and mainly we edited some work and finialized our decesions for the publication. "On Wings of Words" was the final publication title, which was a great choice to accompany the artwork for cover. We talked about the celebration and asked those who where there to spread the word. The women were very helpful in giving eachother some constructive criticism as well as talking some of the publication issues through. The work they have chosen to include is looking great and many of the women are including some art work to go along with their writing.

Following our last workshop was Thanksgiving break...which at this point in the semester was MUCH needed. The Saturday before school started back up again I was hard at work compiling the writing to be included in the publication. Sunday and Monday we had a bookfair at Barnes and Noble which was exhausting and hopefully well worth all the hard work put into it. I was suprised to see how many people were at Barnes and Noble (Christmas shopping, I'm sure), I decided that the number one item I saw people walking out the door with was  the Dictionary...I noticed this becasue I handed a few of our vouchers to people carrying dictionary's.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week were all spent getting the publication put together...it took a lot longer than I thought. I think it will turn out really nice though and I am excited to see what everyone else thinks of it. The semester is really winding down and I am looking forward to a long winter break.

Tomorrow night is our Speak Out! celebration at the LCDC which I am looking forward to...Hopefully we will have the enough authors there to read their work. Stay tuned to hear how it went...

Exciting things have been happening with our Speak Out! writing program at the LCDC. With only one workshop left, we have decided on a publication size, binding, title, and color. We talked about including artwork and the cover page. Tobi and I had discussed making this a "journal" with the intent that we would have the same title (Speak Out! Journal) and different volumes and issues everytime we published something.  The women seemed receptive to this idea which was good seeing how most of the publication choices are completely up to them. To me, a journal seems a little bit more professional and has a serious feel to it, which to a point is what we want the women to get out of the workshops. There is a lot to think about and do in the next week!

Last night during our workshop we worked on editing the pieces to be included in the publication which was great. In previous workshops the women would tell eachother why their work was so great, versus providing suggestions for making it better. It was great to see and hear them give eachother constructive criticism. Last night the group dynamic was good, but small. I've always found that when editing it's better to have a small group for more one-on-one interaction. We have quite a few pieces that the women consider ready to be put in the publication, so that takes some of the weight off of my shoulders.

Once we finished editing we did another collaborative poem this time titled: I Believe.  This was a fun one again it got some funny responses as well as some very serious ones. After the collaborative poem we had the girls take some pictures to be included in the publication, which seemed to take forever. After the pictures, we were running short on time and had to cut the cinderella prompt short which was a shame since we all had done some extensive research on it, but the women were getting anxious so we got them decided to end for the night.

Our main goal for next week was to each come up with a paragraph that they felt should be included in the introduction of the publication. We had some writing ideas for the women but their main focus was meant to be for the introduction and to continue editing their work.

That is all for now...Until next time...

The past few weeks have been super busy…I can't believe that we only have 4 weeks of class left. Our fall writing program at the LCDC is rapidly winding down leaving me to wonder what I am going to do with my Wednesday nights!! I haven't updated in a while so I'll give a run down of what has happened in the past two workshops and where we are headed.

Workshop 7:

 The past few weeks Tobi, Andrea, Laura, and I have been thinking about our goals for the workshop and what we want the women to get out of it.  The women are referring to the workshop as "Speak Out!" which means that they recognize one of our sole purposes in having the workshops, which is allowing their voices to be heard. Seeing how this is one of our main goals we have been challenged in a sense that we are still trying to decide what kinds of writing the women should be doing. After we had talked about some of these issues Tobi suggested we do something with the upcoming elections and the ballot issues. I found some interesting referendums and amendments that pertained to minimum wage, marriage, veteran benefits, civil unions, and others. We highlighted the main issues and wrote them on the whiteboard (the pro's and con's), we had a very small group, which allowed each person to have their own ballot issue in front of them. Then we asked the women to pick one issue and write a position statement. This was a very interesting night because we had a woman who was strongly opposed to one of the ballot issues, and wrote a statement that certainly showed her position on it, but was offensive. Considering the nature of our workshop and reason for being there we are not exclusive of who can read their work, or determining who is right and who is wrong. So we were stuck, and have had numerous conversations since about how to deal with a piece of writing that could easily offend someone. BUT, if that was the downside then here is the good side: this prompt seemed to have the women genuinely interested in issues that could potentially affect their lives. In my opinion the women left the room with more information than they had when they came in, and that is a powerful thing.

            It was also during this workshop that we read For Strong Women by Marge Piercy, a great poem by the way. We asked the women to read it aloud, because of course, all poetry should be read aloud multiple times before you can fully understand the meaning (thanks Dr. Reid). Then we had them take one or two lines from the poem that stuck out to them and basically they did a free-write activity on it.  Their work was awesome, we had boxing metaphors, feminist ideas, sad poems, writing that pertained to getting stuck in the same patterns, etc. I realized during this exercise that the women are beginning to think a little bit more critically about what they are reading. They are looking much deeper in the text and coming up with some very stimulating pieces of writing, which may or may not have been the case eight weeks ago.

Workshop 8:

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that the women who have been attending the workshops regularly have become leaders. The have earned their peers respect and are extremely helpful to myself and the other workshop leaders. Eight weeks ago I would have been able to point out one woman who I would have considered to be a leader, and eight weeks later we have a handful of women who have come a long way.

We had a relatively small group again which was nice. We spent more time talking than writing but it seemed to be a nice break for the women. We talked about the publication; other incarcerated writing programs around the country, and some ethical issues pertaining to including illustrations. We are beginning to focus on editing and thinking about what will be included in the publication. We had time for one prompt that was meant to be a collaborative poem, but the nature of the content made me think that personal writing would be better for this particular prompt. It came from a book titled I Never Told Anybody.  The prompt was just that, I read from the poem and then asked the women to tell a few things they've never told anybody OR (Laura's suggestion) to write about  "fictional" things that you've never told anyone. We had some great things come from this piece; because one woman took her imagination a little bit farther we had a great discussion and even a prompt for this coming week. She wrote a piece about Cinderella, and how she never told anybody how much she hated how perfect everyone in the story was. Her writing sparked a discussion about fairytales and the way that women are portrayed in them that will serve as our writing prompt for this week. I am looking forward to completing our publication as well as having the women read their stuff at the beginning of December.

Until next time…

Well here I am again...I swear every Friday is cloudy and storming outside. I come up to the office and every single friday looks so dreary...at least I enjoy this kind of weather otherwise I would be goning INSANE! You know what I don't really like...SNOW (at least not in October)

Hey!! Guess what?!?!?!? I finally finished the reports/letters to Mildred Arnold and Open Meadows. There are in the mail/the office of Eddy waiting to be mailed as we speak. 

Workshop 6

It was great to be back in the workshops working with the women after what seemed like an eternity of missing out on the fun. We had some new faces (who may have been there before, but were new to me) and some great writing happening! Quite a few women had done some writing over the week and were very willing to share what they had written. Tobi, Andrea and I had brought along some great prompt ideas that the women seemed to enjoy. We had a couple of women who were very chatty and had to be asked to listen...the one thing I am still learning about is how to command their attention. I am used to working with adolescents who are generally afraid of being reprimanded, its kind of a different story at the workshops. I am working on finding the middle ground of asking for their attention without getting too frusterated. If I were excited and happy to be somewhere I would want to talk to my friends too...

Back to the writing... we had some great prompt ideas and as usual we didn't quite get to all of them. The prompt I brought in was an activity that I had done in one of my classes very recently. I asked the ladies to to complete a sensory inventory, using only adjectives they described an aspect of their day using their 5 senses. It was a somewhat confusing prompt but you never would have known from the writing that was produced. We had writting that was very serious to very funny. Our next prompt was a word ticket prompt. Andrea brought in words written on raffle tickets which the women chose from a fishbowl. The writing was fairly funny and the women seemed to really enjoy picking tickets and were having fun trading them with eachother. We were running short on time and so Tobi wrote three things on the board and began to explain our next activity.

Listen Up?    Listen Up.     Listen Up!   She explained the difference between each of these, and asked the women to write a about the third one. This was our collaborative poem. The women wrote a few sentences that they believed were important. We then read them all aloud and gave a number to each so that they would be included in the poem. There were exclamations that were very funny, true, serious, and sad. The poem turned out greatand it was a fun exercise because just about every person contributed. With that, we had run out of time and had to return the women to their pods. Below are the writing ideas for the week...

  Week Six Writing Ideas:

·       The smells of winter, the sights of winter, the sounds of winter, the touch of winter, the tastes of winter

·       "If I were an animal I would be a ..." (Describe the animal you would like to be and why)

The women chose to also pick these two prompts:

1. Faith

2. "As I lay me down to sleep..."

That's all for now...Until Next Time

Hello Again! I can't believe that it's reading days already...that means its half a month until Halloween, a month and a half until Winter Break, and six and a half months until school is over...ummm where did the time go? Things have been going pretty well at the CLC lately. We had a staff meeting yesterday and talked about some goals for the semester and how our reports and grants are going.

I have been playing with the idea of maybe getting the women at the LCDC involved with some sort of book club much like what Jessi and Amanda are working on for the spring. The detention center has a library that is run by a inmate worker who as it turns out was a librarian. The women are allowed to take books back to the pod so it seemed like maybe an opportuinity to start something. We talked a lot at our meeting about how much we could handle with only four of us and two major projects underway already, its kind of up in the air as to how much more we can all take on.

Workshop 5

Last night Andrea and I did not attend the writing workshop because we were too busy doing our volunteer training....ya that's right we are official Larimer County Detention Center volunteers. We have a picture ID and everything...we rock. 

At the training we met Joan, the volunteer coordinator and ran through the volunteer handbook. I must say a lot of the information in the packet was very interesting...the statistics were what particularly caught my eye. Joan was very nice and informative and seemed to genuinely care about the inmates.

 I was actually pretty bummed that the training overlapped with our workshop becasue I miss the ladies. I did put together a little lesson plan/activity sheet to organize the night and it seemed like there was going to be some very interesting writing taking place. As we were taking a tour of the entire facility (not just the womens pods) we ended up running into Tobi and Laura as they were leaving the room.

 I must say that there were quite a few women in attendance, which is always a good thing!! Tobi and Laura handed us a bunch of writing that the women had asked for feedback on which is great. I'm glad the women are enjoying the workshop and submiting  their work. 

We are halfway through the workshops which means that its getting to be that time where we talk about the publication. We had a young woman who is an amazing artist sketch what could possibly be our cover page. I have to say that I was impressed by the drawing! There was a very creative title for the publication also, but I won't give it away because we still have a few more weeks before we have to commit to anything. I'm excited to see how it turns out. 

That is all for now....Until Next Time  

Replies to this Entry:

Book club idea

Tobi Jacobi, tjacobi@colostate.edu
Reply Created: October 18, 2006

It's that time of the week again...Blog Time!!!!

Well the fabulous ladies of the CLC have been hard at work finding funding, writing reports, updating calendars, watering plants, and living life. On another note the writing mentor program that the CLC and Dr. Jacobi's Prison literature course piloted last spring seems to be off to a great start. We have quite a few ladies from our Speak Out! workshops participating in that venue of writing as well. Our CSU mentors seem to be very involved with their incarcerated writer and take thier writing very seriously...It's truly an awesome program!!

This seemed to be a static week for me, mostly working on responding to womens writing, putting materials together, and reading some of the books that have potential to be used for the IGLP next semester. Currently I am reading a novel called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which is an excellent story, but I won't ruin it in case it makes its way on the reading list. Jessi and I have Wednesday office hours together which always proves to be fun and productive, and she told me to look at one of the children's books Owen and Mzee: The True Story of  a Remarkable Friendship. It's a childrens book about a friendship between a hippo and a giant tortiose. I thought she was kidding at first, but it was one of the cutest stories. If you haven't read it, I strongly suggest you do, especially if you are an animal lover. Jessi and I also put up the posters for Speak Out! and the IGLP program and writing workshop. They only sat folded on the top of the filing cabinet for a month until we finally decided it was time to put them up again. It was more of Jessi's idea, I just helped. Either way, come check out the posters that are finally hanging in the window of Eddy 346!

Workshop #4

Well I hate to say this, but I was plagued with a migraine on Wednesday and was unable to attend the writing workshop at the LCDC. The writing prompts however were very thought provoking and relateable to the women's lives. Tobi had a great idea for expository writing... letters to the editor. It was a more serious writing prompt, but one that is important. Letters to the editor (or to anyone for that matter) allow everyone to have their voice and opinoins be heard.  Laura  brought in a poem that was read aloud and recieved very well by the women, I've included the piece below becasue I think it's a great poem and want to share it with you!

 The title of the piece is "Bridging" by Marge Piercy:

Being together is knowing
even if what we know
is that we cannot really be together
caught in the teeth of the machinery

A clear umbilicus
goes out invisibly between,
thread we spin fluid and finer than hair
but strong enough to hang a bridge on

That bridge will be there
a blacklight rainbow arching out of your skull
whenever you need
whenever you can open your eyes and want
to walk upon it

Nobody can live on a bridge
or plant potatoes
but it is fine for comings and goings,
meetings, partings and long views
and a real connection to someplace else
where you may
in the crazy weathers of struggle
now and again want to be.

I've noticed that as the women are turning in their writing, my responses to them have become very detailed. I think this shows how their writing has started to show depth and make me think quite a bit about how stricking their writing has become. I will admit that when I respond to some pieces there are no words to describe their work other than "WOW!" I love that all the women have a different story to tell, and although they are all given the same writing prompt, every single person has something different to say.

Here were the writing prompts for the upcoming week:

1. Write about an unforgettable person in your life. What made this person so special? What did they do for you? What did you do for them? Describe them both in personality and in appearance.

2. If you could have any superpower what would  you have?

I suppose that is all for now...have a great Homecoming/Family weekend...and be sure to cheer on the Rams at the football game tomorrow!!

Until Next Time...

I'm beginning to feel like a pro at this whole blogging business. It has been a busy busy week for the CLC, at least that is how it feels! We had a staff meeting on Wednesday to talk about future goals for the CLC, and we talked a lot about the IGLP and getting it on its feet for the spring. It seems like Amanda and Jessi have a great handle on things! They have already been selecting some books to read/screen for their book club and writing workshops that will take place in the spring...but I'll let them tell you more about that!!! This morning (Friday) Tobi and I attended the Literacy Network meeting at the Harmony library. It was an early morning, but my lack of catching some zzzzzzz's was for a good cause. There was a diverse group of adults at the meeting, all aiming towards the same goal.  Many of the people who attened the meeting were interested in teaching the GED to adults and ESL students. One of the issues addressed was offering tutors to help ESL students prepare for the GED, as well as, take the GED in Spanish. The minutes from the meeting will be posted on the literacy network website.

WorkShop # 3

Let's talk about Speak Out! Man it was fun this week. Our biggest group yet and a little bit more out of control than usual, but I was ok with that. We had a much larger group than anticipated, so after we got the women Andrea and I had to scramble a little bit to put extra folders together (blank paper, a fact sheet, permission to publish sheet, etc.) while Tobi got the ladies settled in and settled down a bit. Once all the business was taken care of Andrea explained the first writing activity, the exquisite corpse poem.  She started all the women off with the same prompt: "Once upon a time, in a very small villiage at the foot of a giant, purple mountain..."  The women were asked to continue the story based off of that by writing for about two minutes. Once the time was up, we folded the paper over so that only the last sentence written was shown, then they passed the paper to their right and continue the story for the paper now in front of them. We did this a few times and then finally read the stories, some of them were pretty silly. Since the directions are confusing in general Andrea and I modeled how to fold the paper and so on. I could hear the women whispering about how fun that paricular activity was, I was cool to see so many smiles and to hear that they were enjoying it.

Andrea also did a really cool prompt with pictures she had cut out and put on cardstock paper. Some of the pictures were very cool, I got a picture of a grrek sculpture that was outside and by the puicture I could tell that it was autumn judging by the color of the leaves on the trees. We had some awesome work come from that activity; it was basically a free write for ten minutes that produced some very thoughtful work.

After we completed the picture activity we moved on to a music prompt. I had found a great song to write about and burned it onto a CD and made copies of the lyrics on as a handout. Des'ree was the artist, You Gotta Be was the song. I've posted the lyrics below:  

You Gotta Be                        

by Des'Ree
Lyrics:

 Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted
Don't be ashamed to cry

You gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day

Herald what your mother said
Read the books your father read
Try to solve the puzzles in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you
Others take a different view
My oh my, hey hey

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day

Don't ask no questions, it goes on without you
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace
The world keeps on spinning
You can't stop it, if you try to
This time it's danger staring you in the face

Oh oh
Remember
Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds

Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may cause you tears 

Go ahead release your fears
My oh my, hey hey
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Yeah yeah yeah

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Yeah yeah

Got to be bold
Got to be bad
Got to be wise
No one ever said

Got to be hard
Not too too hard
All I know is
I never saved the day

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day

So we listened to the music and many of the women immediately recognized the song. A lot of them seemed to really enjoy this activity, and some sang along with the CD. Once the song was over I asked the women to pick one line of the song that stuck out to them and write it at the top of their paper. It took a few times for me to get everyones attention, but that seemed to be the theme of the night. Once they picked their line and had written it down it was pretty much a free write that incorporated the line they picked from the song. I modeled my choice by writing on the white board, and although I wasn't sure how I felt about ALL EYES ON MY WRITING (SCARY!!!) I figured that most of the women didn't care about what I was writing, they more than likely just liked seeing me (or Tobi or Andrea) doing the same thing they were. Writing is not easy, especially when you are only given ten minutes or so and expected to share your work. I know how the ladies feel now. Kudos to the women for being so brave and sharing their work! Again we had some great writing come from this prompt. It was our last exercise of the night so we handed out the writing ideas (which i've posted below ) and called it a night.

Writing Ideas:

·       Think of the one place that is the most special to you.  Imagine you are a painter, painting that place so that others will see what it looks like too.  Using words as paint create a picture on your piece of paper.

·       Describe any photograph in detail…it can be real or imaginary.

Until Next Time....

Hello again!

Can you believe this weather? Freezing temperatures, threat of snow, where has the sun gone?  We left our second writing workshop  on Wednesday under threat of being soaked by the crazy rain. It was a race to our cars protecting the womens writing and our folders. It was an interesting workshop, but interesting in a good way.

When we arrived we were told that six of the women who were there last week would not be with us this week... disciplinary action or something. We had a small group to start out with, six women, we added three more when they were done with their physical activities. It was a small group, three less than the first week, BUT it was a very active group which made it a fun and comfortable setting.

Before we head over to the LCDC we meet a coffee shop to discuss how the night will run, who will do what, our goals for the evening, etc, etc. Our goal for the night was to have more women participate, that is, read their work. As it turned out our small number was a great way for the new women to come and feel comfortable reading their work. By the end of the workshop I thought that we met our goal because every person who was there shared their work, whether it was the entire piece or just a line that they wanted to read aloud. The feedback improved as well. Our first workshop was very encouraging and at times many women would say, "that was so good."  During our second workshop we had more detailed responses. Instead of, "that was so good" we had some say, "I really liked the words you chose," or "it made me think of..."  Naturally, the returning participants were much more willing to give feedback and read aloud which was nice. Even though it was the second workshop it felt like the sixth, I personally felt much more comfortable and I think that helped the women even the new participants feel more comfortable.

We had some fun prompts this week! We started out with an Ice Breaker, one you may be familiar with: 2 things you wish were true and one that is. We had a range of wishes, from living in Bolivia, graduating college with a soccer scholarship, to living in a log cabin in the mountains with two cats.  After we all went around and read we went on to the next activity. Tobi and I spent a long time looking for a poem/short story for this activity, and could not find the one we wanted. However we found a couple of poems that included a lot of detail and we had the women read them aloud. Then we asked them to write about a place/street that they knew very well, using as much detail as possible. We had some awesome responses. All of the women had something/some place interesting to talk about. The places ranged from a boyfriends bedroom, the house they grew up in, or a neighborhood they knew well.  It seems like the women are becoming more comfortable experimenting with different ways of expressing themselves. Generally when I think of creative writing I immediately think of poetry. The women used lists, some poems, and vignettes in order to respond to the prompts. The next prompt we did was and exercise writing about a childhood memory. Although this prompt evoked some emotional memories we had a great discussion that elicted awesome feedback from the other women.

We ended our workshop with some Writing Ideas for the next week:

1. Pick 10 people and write a one sentence description of them.

2. Write about a time someone said "no."

3. Write about a holiday memory.

Until Next Time...

 

It's been a BUSY week with school, writing workshops, and grant writing workshops. Things have been going strong at the CLC this week; I think we have all finally settled in. Earlier in the week Amanda, Jessi, and I attended a grant writing workshop, which proved to be very helpful. The workshop gave us some great tips on finding funding for our projects. Apparently writing grants isn't as hard as you might think...who knew?! Although I haven't had a lot of time to research and write grants I have been working on a few reports to foundations that helped fund Speak Out! last year. Along with working on the project reports, we held our first fall Speak Out! women's creative writing workshop at the Larimer County Detention Center.

Prior to heading to the LCDC Andrea (a volunteer and huge help to me) came into the CLC to help get everything together. It was great to have her come in on her own time to help, it made life a little less stressful. It was an exciting day for me when I walked through the doors of the LCDC with the 3 other women by my side. Andrea and I met Skip who is CSU's liaison. After going through all of the security procedures we made our way to Skip's classroom where we put together folders for the women who were going to participate in the workshop. After we laid out all of the folders we went to the women's pod to collect the women who were participating. They recognized Tobi right away and seemed very excited to have us there. When we got back to Skip's classroom all of the women took a seat and we went around the room and introduced ourselves. It was interesting because some of the women seemed nervous/reluctant to speak out loud. I suppose we all feel that way sometimes.

We all had a designated prompt that we were in charge of leading which was great Andrea started off with an acrostic poem they're harder to do than you might think She came up with a clever sentence using the letters of her name. Many of the women asked for help with certain letters and how to spell or define certain words which was great. They were all helping each other out. We asked for volunteers to read, and some did, the poems that were read aloud were very creative and it was fun to hear what they had to say. When we were done with the acrostic poem we had a photocopy of Sandra Cisneros's vignette "My Name" from her book, The House on Mango Street." The women read that aloud and then read "Beginning: August 1920" from Karen Hesse's book Out of the Dust. I gave a little intro about the book, the verse form, and then asked volunteer's to read it aloud. When we were done with that we asked the women to write about either their name or where they came from. We did that for about 10 minutes and then we had some volunteer's who read aloud. There was one writer who was "idolized" by the other women for her ability to write. She was very good; her writing was clever, witty, a bit sarcastic, and full of voice. She seemed to bring a great energy to the room. We were running a little bit short on time, but enough for one more writing prompt. I asked the women to think about autumn, the changing of the seasons, memories they had, holidays associated with the season, etc. We had some awesome writing come out of this prompt. The writing was very detailed and related directly to their lives. Although it did get a bit emotional I think the women enjoyed thinking about autumn. We stopped around 8:10 and took the women back to their pod. It was an excellent 1^st experience with the Speak Out! Creative writing workshop.

Here are the writing ideas for next week:

Lots of writers use dreams to inspire their work. Sometimes they write about dreams they've actually had; other times they use the "idea of a dream" to inspire a piece of writing. Write about a dream you have.

·       Write about your proudest moment.

·       Write about these two topics:

1. 1^st day of school.

2. The day you will be released.

Until Next Time...

Not a whole lot has happened since my initial entry, other than that our very own CSU Rams football team beat CU's Buffalo's in the Rocky mountain showdown today...but hey, I'm not one brag. This has been a week full of office work and preparation for the main reason I am here. This coming Wednesday we will be holding our first "Speak Out!" writing workshop at the Larimer County Detention Center. I am very excited (and a little bit nervous, but shhh! don't tell anybody) because this will be my first time working with the women and with Dr. Jacobi outside of the University. In order to prepare myself I had the chance to read the some of the work produced by the writing workshops from last fall and last spring. Reading the work that the women from the detention center produced was an inspiring experience. The women were so strong and their messages were so powerful, I could not help but become excited to work with and amongst them.

Earlier this week Dr. Jacobi, Andrea (a CLC volunteer), and I met to go over how the writing workshops will run. We simulated an exercise that we might use later in the month to show how we would respond to reading a poem  entitled: "For Strong Women," by Marge Piercy. It is a powerful poem containing a lot of imagery and emotion. I can see why it is one of Dr. Jacobi's favorite poems and would be great to use in the workshop.

The "training" helped me see how the workshops were run in the past and put my mind at ease a little bit.  Although it seemed like a lot of information and responsibility at the time, I've come to realize that this project is what I want to be doing. I have had leadership roles with jobs before, but I've always felt that what I was doing had no connection to what I aim to do in life. I am ready to get my feet wet and work with the LCDC and the "Speak Out!" womens creative writing workshops with the confidence of knowing that literacy is something I am passionate about.

More to come after our first workshop...wish me luck!!

About me: Well, my name is Emily, or Em, but never Emmy. This is my Senior year at Colorado State University where I am hoping to recieve a degree in English Education. I am originally from Alaska, but as many families do, we moved around quite a bit. I suppose that Colorado is my home now.  I was not originally interested in English, but somehow everything fell into place and I couldn't be happier. About a year ago I did some volunteer work with "Reach out and Read" which really got me thinking about literacy in the Fort Collins area. I have been an avid reader (and writer) since I was very young. I spent a lot of my "free time" when I was growing up reading and occasionally writing. When my brother and I would get sent to our rooms we would pass notes back and forth through the vent in our closets as a way to blow off steam. Reading and writing are a way for me to express myself in any way, and I like that. When I heard about the Community Literacy Center I knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of.

What I'm interested in: I'm interested in learning more about literacy, literacy practices, and how literacy works within the adult population. I like that the CLC works mainly with adults. Although my experience working with adult literacy is limited, I love a challenge. My greatest interest about the programs/projects that the CLC does is definitely the Speak Out! writing workshops. I love the idea of working with underserved populations. I am also interested in finding research about gender and literacy...that might be the future teacher in me...I'm not sure.

Meeting with the other CLC interns: About a week ago we had our first staff meeting where we went over introductions, expectations, schedules, etc. We have a diverse group of ladies working here this semester. Tobi went over the different projects that we will be working on throughout the year and although it seemed like so much information at once I wanted to jump right in. I am very excited to get the ball rollin' and to get to work on some of these projects!

I suppose that is all for now...until next time!