october community outreach

Red Bank Middle School

This month, to help generate ideas in our notebooks, we focused our weekly writing workshops with our 7th and 8th grade AVID students on topics we are familiar with and places that are special to us. We kicked off the month drafting stories about our names and the impact they have on our lives after reading “My Name” from The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. We read the poem “Remember,” by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and then generated lists of our own memories using the prompt “I remember.” We wrote about home using both literal and figurative language after reading “Five Directions to My House,” by Juan Felipe Herrera. On National Color Day (October 22), we created lists in our notebooks of different colors, adding imagery and sensory details. And to celebrate Halloween, we read the poem “Cupid,” by Amber Flora Thomas (which is actually a Halloween poem), to inspire Halloween-themed stories about costumes, mischief night, and trick or treating. And every week, of course, we shared! We’re excited to see how these young writers will take these drafts and develop them in upcoming months!

We also get to pop into the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade AVID elective twice a cycle. With the 4th and 5th grades, we showed our young writers where ideas come from–creating heart maps filled with people, places, and things we love and writing about what courage means to us after reading the picture book Courage, by Bernard Waber. In 6th grade, we read “My Skeleton,” by Jane Hirshfield, and used the poem to inspire letters of appreciation to different parts of our bodies. Some students wrote odes to their hearts, others to their feet and hands, and one chose to write to his (very smart) brain! We love being able to introduce PWN and begin cultivating the joy of writing with these young writers!

Shore House

At Shore House this month, we also explored writing about our names in response to Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. It’s amazing the amount of stories just one name can hold! Members shared stories about names that have carried through generations as well as names they wish they had instead, and why. On October 17, we read “My Skeleton,” by Jane Hirshfield. Inspired by the poem, we then wrote odes to our own bodies–one member wrote about the importance of her feet, another about the kindness in his heart, and two members chose to write about the power of their minds. And today, we are so excited to celebrate Halloween with the Shore House members! We can’t wait to see who shows up in costume!

Tween Writing Group

Each week during our Tween Writing Group, which is held on Wednesday afternoons, we read poetry to inspire our creative work. This month, we started with “Don’t Go Into the Library,” by Alberto Rios, to evoke writing about places and using sensory details for vivid settings. On October 9, we read “Eating Poetry,” by Mark Strand, using the poem as a model to explore different perspectives in our own work. We continued our lessons on perspective the following two weeks, reading “Hunch,” by Jay Parini, and “Sorcery,” by Sandra Simonds. Getting in the Halloween spirit, we wrote stories from the perspective of witches, creating spells and deciding which ingredients go into their potions. We continued our spooky theme by ending the month reading “Unbidden,” by Rae Armantrout, and then writing and sharing our scariest stories both real and imagined before decorating pumpkins with poetry as keepsakes. Laughter and creativity are always abundant in the Tween Writing Group! Register here for our next six-week session, which begins November 6.

21st Century Community Learning Center (Long Branch)

We are having so much fun storytelling with 3rd graders in the Long Branch after-school program using picture books as our guides and source of inspiration! So far, the students have learned how authors use their imaginations to find story ideas and then brainstormed their own. We have also explored different kinds of characters and settings and how to make them come to life on the page. Next up: focusing on what the character wants and how they try to get it!

A Workshop for Parents of Children with Special Needs

On October 21, we held our fifth Workshop for Parents of Children with Special Needs, in partnership with SoulShine Studios. Jennifer Borenius started the session with yoga and meditation and then we wrote in response to the poem “A House Called Tomorrow,” by Alberto Rios. Through writing and sharing, we realized how much strength we carry from our ancestors and how much we pass on to our own children. Wrote one participant in an email after: “My experience has shown that we parents live intersecting and parallel lives with our child/children. The voices and stories expressed during the workshop echoed a myriad of pinpoints on our individual emotional maps. Finding one’s voice amid all the chaos is a challenge; some parents are not accustomed to hearing their own speaking voice. Offering a safe opportunity to channel our voices and narratives outside of the educational, medical, and societal realms is a gracious gift.” Our next session is scheduled for November 18, 12 to 1:30 p.m. Register here.

Bridge Ink Volume 3 Issue 5

Our newest issue of Bridge Ink, our GLOBAL online young adult literary magazine, is out just in time for Halloween! It brings you spooky stories and poems from teens near and far–one piece came to us all the way from China! With titles such as “The Unaccomplished Poet,” “High School Girl Discovers the Seattle Grunge Scene in 2019,” and “The Corn Plant and the Chipmunk,” this issue is sure to wow and inspire! Check it out here. If you know of a teen writer looking to get published, encourage them to read our submission guidelines here.

College Essay at Red Bank Regional

Students from our very first class of 7th graders at Red Bank Middle School are now SENIORS! (I know! We can’t believe it either!) This month we reunited with several of them at Red Bank Regional to help them with their college essays. They came into the SOURCE smiling and excited to see us, and we are equally thrilled to work with them again. We will spend the next couple of Tuesdays and Thursdays during lunch periods drafting, revising, and polishing for submission. We love that our program comes full circle!

Senior Space

With the active seniors at the Woman’s Club of Red Bank this month, we read a short story from Karl Ove Knausgård’s book of essays to his unborn daughter, Winter, to explore the relationships between past and future, then and now. We wrote about what we hoped to carry forth into the future, what we wanted to be remembered by, what we cherished, and what we hoped would stand the test of time. There were stories about the necessity of daily laughter, the importance of knowing the names of everyone in your community–including the garbage people, the checkout grocer, people you pass in the street–as well as the importance of family dinners as ritual–a time to connect and deepen relationships and pass down traditions.