Our plan
A group of D.C. residents came together in September 2007 because we believed the District’s educators were doing all they could, but that our students needed further support to ensure that they would learn how to express themselves through writing. Some of us had heard of the 826 writing centers around the country and believed that model worked. A few of us were teachers who knew first-hand the importance of writing skills and the challenges students faced. All of us were ready to bring about change for the young people we saw in our neighborhoods and homes. We believed that within every student there existed a brilliant writer. We wanted to help D.C.’s students improve their writing through workshops and one-on-one support.
What we did
We spoke with educators and directors of other educational and/or arts-related nonprofit organizations to understand how to build a writing center from scratch. We incorporated ourselves, established a website and assembled a board. We pitched our ideas to schools, government officials and anyone we believed would care. In late April, we hosted our first workshop at Politics & Prose. The first workshop had fewer than 10 students. In our first five months of workshops (in schools and elsewhere), we worked with 120 students in total. In November, we worked with over 200 students in that month alone. In the fall of 2008, we also launched weekly drop-in tutoring at a local library and began a year-long book publishing project with 30 students at Cardozo High. We received nonprofit status in late September and began actively fundraising through events, a Family & Friends campaign, grants and presentations to local businesses. This is an ongoing effort and we will open a physical center, with storefront, once we reach an appropriate level of funding. In the meantime, educators keep inviting us back, Cardozo students continue to show up an hour early to work with us on their book and D.C.’s students, in our workshops, improve their ability to write about their lives and the world around them.
Our results
Students, educators, families and interested people in the community have been positively impacted by our work. We’ve asked educators how they’d like us to complement their work and demonstrated a needed degree of support. We’ve brought students a new perspective on writing and some ideas, like ‘zines or persuasive essay writing along the lines of NPR’s “This I Believe.” For working parents, our weekly homework help at Shaw Library ensures that someone else is helping their children finish their assignments in the afternoon. For people in the community, we’ve shown them how to get involved and make a dream come alive day by day, student by student, word by word.
Julia
Hey, that's me in the picture! :) That photo was taken at the Shaw library in my old neighborhood in Washington, DC. Tavia was a really fun student to work with, and we blitzed through some geography and math while the tutoring coordinator, Jared, talked to other students about citations in their research papers. From a volunteer standpoint, the tutoring program is great because it affords volunteers the opportunity for some meaningful one-on-one time with DC Public School students who elect to be there. (It's also nice to have an excuse to spend some time in a library and remember that there are ways to conduct research besides typing search terms into Wikipedia and Google.) I've also led and TA'd a few workshops for Capitol Letters, and it's a blast. One of my favorite moments was during a zine writing workshop with a bunch of older teens during a summer program. Most of the students were new to the zine format, and so was I, so we learned together. I was in awe of the depth and breadth of topics and themes covered – they ranged from homages to favorite hip-hop artists and athletes to how to earn trust and be a good friend. One of my favorite moments was when a student half-jokingly told me he would write about how the SAT was unfair. I looked him in the eye and said, "I'd want to read that. It sounds political." He went on to write six pages in minuscule print (so all his thoughts would fit on the folded pages) about how not all students have equal access to SAT prep resources and how the exam isn't an accurate tool for assessing a student's potential and knowledge. As someone who never felt standardized tests reflected what she knew...I was pretty happy to connect with a kindred spirit that afternoon. I love Capitol Letters because our volunteer base is made up of funny, kind, committed people, and because we don't impose lesson plans on teachers; rather, we work WITH teachers and community leaders to develop workshops that make sense in each classroom or venue, and that allow students to express their unique points of view. Thanks so much to Once Upon a School for giving CLWC the space to share our vision here!
Loren
As a former DC resident, I love that CLWC has worked so well at working with DC teachers, schools and neighborhoods--finding a way/place to help bring out the stories from within the heart of a community. Very smart. You are doing such good work, CLWC! I can't wait to read what comes out of your program.