This fall semester has brought with it an influx of new, talented mentors (as well as Shortridge students, but I think that’s a post for later in the week), and almost all of them have little to no experience with Shortridge High School. However, the veterans learned quickly that these new mentors already had a ton of tricks up their collective sleeves. Here’s a quick update from some of our newest mentors on the daily goings-on at SHS:

Joel Zimmerly: This Thursday I got to work with D—  and M— . We started off by talking and getting to know each other. It took me a while to find out that they were both musicians and were really into songwriting. M—  was a little more quiet and shy, but every time he managed to get a line written down, he seemed to beam with more and more confidence. D—  worked in bursts, he had one nice line that read “Family come to the table like hungry animals,” he was pretty excited about it.

M—  told me that he often goes to the library with D—  to work on music and songwriting. They got excited talking about a new song they wanted to write for a party so I got them working on that. It was fun to watch, and I wish I could have seen them perform their song on Tuesday as I heard it was awesome.

Emily Kile: On Tuesday, I got to work with two students I had never met before, G—  and E— . They both responded to the prompt pretty well, but they did so in completely different ways, and that was exciting to see. Once we started working, E—  felt immediately inspired and wanted to start writing right away. G—  and I went through all of the steps, and he got really excited about using lyrics from some of his favorite songs in his final piece. He really thought of some creative places for where those quotes might have been said. They were both great to work with (although their writing processes are very different), and I enjoyed getting to work with new students this week!

Derrick Brown: Similar to last week, I worked with V— . We spent both Tuesday and Thursday reading an article about Roy Hibbert, an Indiana Pacers basketball player. After reading the article aloud, I can already tell he has improved on his fluency. When we get back to Shortridge, V— and I will be reading passages from both his and my favorite books, “The Outsiders” and “The Kite Runner,” respectively.

Jonathan McWhorter: Thursday, I worked with J—  who wrote a poem about Drake and his new album of which she is quite fond. And then we talked about college, driving, and jobs, all of the pains and joys of growing up. Also, I learned I’m not such a skilled sandwich maker. Good times.

Compiled by Luke Wortley