How can we nurture children’s creative ability as writers outside the academic context, celebrating their unique voices, teaching them to trust their ears and value the creative process? It can be set up simply: A group of young students in an after school center. Some adults acting as mentors to help them do creative writing. A space in which to work, create, and perform, but without imposed goals or preconceived outcomes. This is a simple recipe, like those in an ancient Chinese cookbook: to inspire rather than instruct. A handful (or more) of adult college students, some transportation to a site somewhere with kids, aged, say, 5-12, a table and a room to put it in. Write some poetry and perform it, type it out afterwards, copy and distribute it. Put it on the web . Start a collection of it. After a while, say three months, have a big celebration of the written work with hot dogs, cake, and ice cream. Invite the children’s parents and pass out certificates: The words are not school words, but they are extremely important to the kids who created them and their adult collaborators.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric