A REWARDING WEEK OF FIRSTS – Writing in the Schools

Our first week at Shortridge this school year will be remembered for the numerous firsts that we witnessed, including:

The first encounter two of our students from England had with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (“You mean you put them both together, and that’s it?”).
Our first meeting with a handful of new members of Exclusive Ink, several of whom came to us with notebooks and iPads full of poetry that they had been writing on their own. They fit right in alongside our more experienced returnees.
Our first returns for our new focus for the semester: teaching writing by writing, and completing the writing prompts with our Shortridge students to develop trust, empathy, and a better approach to teaching. Let’s just say we all got a lot of writing done the first week, and I think it helped our Exclusive Ink students turn out some really great first week work.
Our first Open Mic readings with regular contributions from Butler mentors. Kate shared her take on the prompt the first day, much to our enjoyment, and on the second day, Jervon moved the audience with a poem that paid tribute to Trayvon Martin.

Thanks to all our Butler mentors and our loyal and enthusiastic Exclusive Ink writers for a terrific first week.