{"id":165,"date":"2011-10-20T10:54:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T14:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/?p=165"},"modified":"2011-11-18T18:41:44","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T23:41:44","slug":"hot-off-the-presses-on-a-cold-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/2011\/10\/20\/hot-off-the-presses-on-a-cold-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Off The Presses On A Cold Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Want a concise article about what the Writing in the Schools Butler\/Shortridge project is all about? Look no further than today’s Indianapolis Star<\/em>. Thanks to Alyssa and Danese for working with us to get the word out.<\/p>\n

They’re getting on the write track
\n<\/strong>by Alyssa Karas, Star correspondent<\/p>\n

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New this school year, volunteers from Butler University\u00a0are offering an after-school creative writing program to tutor students and just maybe coax another Kurt Vonnegut out of Shortridge High School.<\/p>\n

“We really think that the freedom of that after-school activity is going to be different from the classroom,” said Shortridge English teacher Christine Muller. “A little louder maybe, and that’s going to be fun for the kids.”<\/p>\n

Undergraduates and master of fine arts students visit Shortridge twice a week for three or four hours of mentoring with the students. Their goal is to revive the school’s literary journal.<\/p>\n

“We’re hoping to not only sort of tutor Shortridge students who may need help with their writing, but also set up a creative writing group,” said Chris Speckman, the Butler MFA student overseeing the project.<\/p>\n

In addition to sharpening students’ expository writing skills, project leaders want to give students an opportunity to pursue written and spoken-word poetry, as well as fiction writing.<\/p>\n

Muller said writing is difficult for many students. English teachers at Shortridge have about 160 students, and an after-school program will help to ease the burden. Not to mention it could help students ace academic placement tests and prepare for college.<\/p>\n

“We want kids writing,” she said. “Both kids who are good at it and kids who want to be good at it.”<\/p>\n

At least 20 Butler students signed up to mentor at Shortridge. Many of the Butler participants are enrolled in a course called Writing in the Schools, and the program at Shortridge will serve as a real-life example.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want to come in there and act like we’re the boss,” Speckman said. “We’re there to help the Shortridge teachers and administrators get what they need from the students.”<\/p>\n

With extra help, Muller said teachers look forward to seeing students participate in activities outside the classroom.<\/p>\n

“Shortridge has had a long\u00a0tradition\u00a0of literary magazines, and we hope to reinstitute it,” she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to Vonnegut, Shortridge counts among its alums Dan Wakefield, author of “Going All The Way,” and Madelyn Pugh, head writer on the “I Love Lucy” show.<\/p>\n

If the fall semester goes well, organizers from Butler and Shortridge hope to keep the program running long term.<\/p>\n

“It’s a way to show them that writing is all over the place, and it’s something they know how to do,” Speckman said. “It’s just a matter of coaxing them and getting them to have some fun.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want a concise article about what the Writing in the Schools Butler\/Shortridge project is all about? Look no further than today’s Indianapolis Star. Thanks to Alyssa and Danese for working with us to get the word out. They’re getting on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37039],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/mfashortridgeproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}