Badgerdog Creative Writing Program
ABCTX is partnering with another nonprofit organization, Badgerdog, to offer an after school creative writing program that will give visually impaired students the tools to express their feelings in a literary approach. Visually impaired children have a lot to say from their special perspectives. This program, Youth Voices in Ink, will give guide them in expressing their thoughts and feeling on paper so that the rest of us will be able to read and learn.
Youth Voices in Ink (YVI)
Workshop leaders are candidates for a Master in Fine Arts degree and teach the best practices of successful novelists, poets, and essayists — practices that are also aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards. The program offers targeted support in the crucial area of Language Arts. The students are empowered to create literary art from their joy and their jeopardy, their work is published in student anthologies, and they are invited to perform at readings for school and public audiences.
Every 10-week session includes:
- Creative Writing Workshops that meet twice weekly (one 2-hour session, one 1-hour session)
- Intensive instruction in writing and critical reading strategies
- Instruction in proofreading techniques and the opportunity for students to co-edit their own galleys
- Opportunities to navigate quality online literary resources such as the Poetry 180 link from the Library of Congress
- Publication of student work in one, inclusive anthology
- Donation of anthology to school library
- An on-campus reading
- A community-wide reading conducted at a public venue, coordinated with other local YVI workshops
- Stipend for one teacher on campus to sit in on the workshop as observer/participant with no instructional responsibility
- Writing journals and snacks for the students each day that the workshops meet