Before I got to the turning point house this week, I conducted an interview with Jannet Heller from Writerscorps San Fransisco.  One question I asked was if she could give me any advise about this workshop.  She said she was going to be blunt, 6 weeks was not enough time to build trust and expect results from the girls.  In addition, she hinted that it was probably unrealistic for the girls to open up to a facilitator who did not share a common background, experience, or cultural reality.  I saw truth in a lot of what Jannet Heller said, but I also hoped that what our project was trying to accomplish could somehow still be realized  

So, I came into this workshop focusing on trust as a motivation tool, and how it may or may not work in our workshop.  The workshop started out as it usually does; girls moving in and out of the room, lots of talking and settling in, figuring out where each of the groups will go to talk and read and (hopefully) write.  It's all pretty chaotic.  This week, my group of three girls wanted to meet in the family counseling room, but another group wanted to be there too, and so the head teacher had to choose one group to stay and the other to move to another place in the house.  Our group was the one to leave, which was absolutely fine with me, but for the girls, it was a dramatic event that jumpstarted lots of emotions.  So, the three girls that I had came into the workshop with attitudes that carried over from this drama.  This happens a lot at Turning Point from what I can see.  It is something to be expected and understood as a factor that will play into the workshop. 

This week Camryn Leigh and I decided to have the girls make collages.  I wanted to focus mostly on the creation of art in my group.  No big themes or gut wrenching prompts.  Just a group of girls expressing themselves with magazine cutouts, stickers, foam board, scissors, and glue.  At first, the girls were moody and reluctant to participate, pretty much saying that they had no idea what I wanted them to be doing.  Just create art?  What art?  Out of this stuff?  Why?  How?  I had overestimated the power of freedom in creativity.  These girls needed some direction.  So I tried giving them examples off the top of my head.  We came up with a theme: identity.  And we slowly began working towards a final product.

After awhile of cutting and pasting and small talk, we turned on the radio, and settled into a rhythm.  After awhile, the tension in the room seemed to lift and our group just started talking about everyday stuff.  I decided to open up to the girls more than I had in the past, sharing stories, likes and dislikes, etc.  I told one story about how irrational I am with my emotions at times.  I unintentionally, but gladly, sparked a conversation about what happened earlier with the room mixup.  One of the girls said that she thought she reacted irrationally and let her emotions control her.  But then she said that doing “this” (our little project) had really calmed her down and that she really liked “this kind of thing”.  I wanted to jump out of my seat and do a dance singing hallelujah. 

My girls didn’t do much writing during this session.  But that doesn’t bother me.  They got into the project, made it their own by attaching a theme, wanted to continue it later in another session.  One of the girls in my group thanked me as I was walking out saying that she had a lot of fun.  This session made me think about the purpose of our workshop.  Is it to get the girls to be great writers?  Maybe, partly.  Is it to motivate them to read on their own time?  I hope that’s one of the results.  But the purpose, I think, is to help these girls into a positive, healthy experience.  Even for an hour and a half.  If only for six weeks.

I was looking at a really good website this morning called artsusa.org.  I got me thinking about our workshop.  It may help to change our focus a little bit.  There were a lot of quotes and information on this website about the effect that art has on at-risk teens.  When I think of art, I think of something enjoyable, a kind of expression AND escape.  I think we might be neglecting the enjoyable in our workshop. 

We have picked some pretty serious and deep topics for the girls to think and write about these past weeks: prejudice, abuse, identity (to name a few).  Maybe what they need is to get away from those topics a little.  They seem to be confronting those issues on an hourly basis during their time at the house.  Our job as workshop facilitaors is, I think, should be less as counselors.  I think we are trying too hard to get them to think and write deep thoughts.  That may have worked well last time for the zine project (I know it did in my group), but this is a whole different group of girls.  And what I keep hearing from them is that this is bringing up things that they dont really want to think about. 

Maybe the workshop would be more enjoyable for the girls if it were a time to relax and have fun.  To express their artistic side.  Because I am focusing on motivation, I think this would be a good experiment to see how the girls respond to a lighter approach.  I think it is a great idea next week to have them do collages and a poem.  Maybe we could just focus on creative writing as art.  

Let me know what you guys think about this change in approach.     

Replies to this Entry:

Re: ideas for change

Tobi Jacobi, tjacobi@colostate.edu
Reply Created: July 14, 2005

Re: ideas for change

Leigh Pogue, Lena1799@aol.com
Reply Created: July 16, 2005

This was probably the most challenging time I have had with the Turning Point Girls.  That said, I would like to first highlight the positive aspects of the session.  I had two girls in my group to start out with; a third girl joined our group later.  These girls both showed a lot of interest in creative writing, and both were very talented in my opinion.  They had a little trouble with the writing prompt saying that they were confused about the purpose of what I had told them to write.  They didn’t understand why writing a descriptive poem was necessary.  I think that this prompt was out of their comfort zones- they were used to writing about their feelings.  I tried to challenge them to try something new, and after a few minuets of frustrating groans, the girls got really into writing their poems describing their house. 

I was especially excited to witness peer criticism between the girls.  One of them was having trouble with one line in particular, and she was asking the other girl and I if we had any suggestions for clearer wording.  For about five to ten minuets, the three of us wrestled with the line.  Finally we collectively came up with a solution that made the poem even better.  I think, for next week, I want comment on the practice of peer review and revision and point out this instance in our group. 

When it came time to share in the large group, both of the girls were eager to read their poems.  The larger group responded positively to their poems with ohhs and ahhs.  It was encouraging and fun.

Now for the negative aspect.  The girl that joined my group later in the workshop session was the girl I talked about a few blogs earlier.  She is the one from the first session who said she hated writing.  We will call her “J” since she seems to be a reoccurring subject of comment.  I think that what started everything off so badly is that she was forced to join our group.  She was told if she didn’t participate, she would receive a zero for the day.  I don’t know what that means exactly, but I know that J was not happy.  She brought her unhappiness into the group and made a lot of hostile comments.  Some examples: “this is really stupid,”  “don’t even bother because I’m not going to do it,”  “I have no use for this”.  At the time I was very disheartened by these comments and didn’t always know how to respond.  I think I would like to consider the root of these comments and understand how we can use them to better tailor the workshop to her needs.  I still have hope for this girl.  I want to focus next week on encouraging her more, putting the rains in her hands a little more, bringing in materials that she has some interest in (such as Emily Dickenson).  Any other suggestions?  I think it would have been a good idea last workshop to try to include her in the revision suggestion process.  Chalk that one up for future reference.

I have a lot more to comment on / ponder about this workshop.  I think I will continue in another blog, and be finished for now.

This was a great session for me.  As I mentioned before, we decided to break the girls into groups.  This time, we started in the large group and then moved to the small groups after doing an introduction.  The large group was once again very hard to manage.  The girls weren’t very focused.  As an opening to our “genre” for the day (poetry), Camryn and I did a sort of mad lib.  Because the group seems very mixed in personality and taste, there was a mixed response to this activity.  Some of the girls seemed like they just were not interested, some made it very silly and two girls in particular were inappropriate in their suggestions for words to fill in the blanks.

I’ve noticed that I feel really overwhelmed in the large group setting because it seems very unmanageable and chaotic.  I am wondering if we even need to meet in the large group at the beginning of each session.  I feel a little like it is more of a distraction and misuse of time than a beneficial part to the workshop.  What do you guys think about just meeting in the small groups from now on?  Let me know.

Once we got into our groups, everything went so well.  I am usually very nervous at the beginning of each workshop.  If those girls only knew how much I want them to like me and not think that I’m some corny, presumptuous book nerd!  Well, I was a little less nervous in this smaller group, but I was still a little anxious to see how they would respond to the material I was going to have them read. 

The week before the workshop, I took a lot of time reading and planning for the short time of our meeting.  I wanted to find a poem, or two, that they would want to read.  I actually had a very hard time deciding what this workshop session would look like.  I finally settled on a poem by Jo Carson called I Cannot Remember All the Times…  This is such a great poem and it always gives me pricklies when I read it.  (Short aside: I love the quote by, I think it was Gwendolyn Brooks, or maybe Emily Dickenson, that’d be a good thing to find out because they are very different, but the quote goes something like – “I know it’s poetry when I feel like the top of my head has come off.”  I think that is a crazy quote and a great way to describe a reaction to poetry that I’ve felt before that I call the pricklies.)  So, Carson’s poem deals with a very heavy topic.  The speaker of the poem is a woman who has been beaten by her husband and is warning other women about that experience.  Not only do I like this poem because of the emotional response it elicits, but I also like that it seems to have a very distinct purpose.  It sends a message. 

The day of the workshop, I questioned giving this poem to the girls.  Tobi suggested that it might be a little too heavy, especially for our second workshop.  I agreed that it seemed like a risk- I didn’t want to be responsible for an emotional response that would be harmful.  But I did feel really strongly about this poem.  I had to make a judgment call.  I think it came down to the girl’s questionnaire responses.  When I was preparing for the workshop session, I read over the girls’ responses so that I could tailor the plan to their personal preferences.  The girls in my group all seemed to answer similarly.  For the question about what makes you angry in the world, many of the girls said things like hate, violence, war, injustice.  Two of the girls said that A Child Called ‘It’ was their favorite book.  This book is difficult to read and at times is very disturbing and explicit.  I made my decision about the poem, I took a risk, I banked on the possibility that these girls have encountered material with this topic so much already, and I thought that the poem was important and relevant enough to include it in the workshop. 

I watched the girls’ reaction to the poem as they each finished reading it.  The first girl to finish made a face as if she had just eaten a handful of dirt.  Another girl nodded her head and put the poem down on the table and said “it brings up some issues.”  The group started discussing the poem right away, passionately.  For the rest of our time together, there was not a time of silence in the group, I didn’t have to call on anyone to get them to participate, each girl had a strong opinion and a stronger desire to have her voice heard.  These girls were quick and eager to relate the poem to their own lives.  All five of the girls in my group has had some kind of experience with domestic violence, all of them had something to say. 

We didn’t get a chance to start writing, but the girls said they preferred it that way because they wanted to have time to think about what they would write, so opted to make it a sort of homework assignment.  I am excited to see what they will write about.  The prompt I gave them was to write a poem and make it a message to someone specific that needs to be heard.  For example, some urgent advise, or warning, or notice.  It will be interesting to hear their poems next week. 

This poem seemed to pique their interest and motivate them into discussion and writing.  They each seemed really excited to write their own poems.  I just pray that nothing negative came out of their reading of this poem.  I don’t know if it opened up any flood gates in these girls, but I do hope that it sprang a small leak.  I want them to see that poetry is relevant and useful along with being artful.  I want them to know that they can use poetry to say something that needs to be said.  I want them to know that their story is worth telling. 

With Tobi's much needed guidance and assistance I am working on a grant for the coming year's partnership between The Writing Center and Turning Point in the creative writing workshops.  The call is from New Belgium Brewing and the grant proposal is due this Friday!  I talked with Gwen Bell to make sure that Turning Point did not have any restrictions against accepting grant money from New Belgium (considering Turning Point's mission as a substance-abuse rehabilitation facility).  She said, no, in fact New Belgium had funded a few of Turning Point's programs in the past and would not be opposed to seeking funding for our writing workshops.

Not only will it be good experience for me to work on the grant, but I also really hope that we will be able to get some funding.  We'll see what happens.  In the meantime, if anyone comes across any other organizations that are offering grant money or who are funding projects similar to ours, let me know and I will put it in our "pending grants" file.  

Replies to this Entry:

Re: The Grant

Leigh Pogue, Lena1799@aol.com
Reply Created: July 3, 2005

Replies to this Entry:

The First workshop

Tobi Jacobi, tjacobi@colostate.edu
Reply Created: June 28, 2005

Re: First workshop session thoughts

Melissa Andrews, Alisamay742@aol.com
Reply Created: June 30, 2005

I have an obsession.  Everything I do has to have some greater purpose. 

Before begining this reading/writing workshop with the girls at the Turning Point House, I asked myself, why am I doing this?  What is the greater purpose here?  Why do I want to encourage teenagers to read and write on their own(outside of school), to discover the benefits of writing from the heart and reading things that speak to them?  I sat and thought about my answers to these questions.  I wrote out a brainstorm web in my head.  And I finally whitled it down to me.

I believe in the power of words.

When I was in grade school, I took a trip to the library with my mom once a week.  She had to put a book limit on me.  Ten books.  And every week we'd go back, I'd return ten and pick up another ten.  I think that this was a natural thing for me - a natural hunger to read.  When I was thinking up my reasons for doing the workshop and for choosing my focus- motivating teen reading and writing- I considered this natural hunger.  Was this necessary to a belief in the power of words?  Are only certain people going to be personally invested in reading and writing?  I want to seek answers to these questions over the six weeks of the workshop.

A preconceived notion of mine is that every person can know the power of words.

Writing was not a passion of mine early on.  I was not encouraged in this area.  It wasn't until one of my high school English teachers began to praise me for my writing.  She would say, "You sound like you could be writing for a magazine."  I started looking at what I was reading differently then, trying to mimic my favorite authors in my own writing.  I know that my love for reading was a jumping-off point for my love for writing.  I want these teenagers, the Turning Point girls, to be inspired by an author.  And to write from that inspiration.  I want them to say, I can do that, but I need to do it my own way because no one can do it like I can.

Maybe my vision is naive.  But that's one reason I'm doing this.  I need to try it out, and see if I'm on the right track.

I think that it is so important for teenagers to be writing their emotions and connecting with other's emotions expressed in writing.  I want teenagers to get goosebumps when they read.  I want them to write with passion, out of anger or grief or excitement.  And I want them to know that they can use words to change their world.