High School Students in UA’s Creative Writing Club to Give Reading April 24

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Tuscaloosa area high school students from The University of Alabama’s Creative Writing Club (CWC) will give a reading on Monday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. in room 301 of Morgan Hall.

These students, from Northridge, Hillcrest, Tuscaloosa Christian, Holy Spirit and other area high schools, have been studying creative writing during the spring semester with UA graduate students from the University’s MFA program in creative writing. This spring marks the CWC’s second year. The club, created by UA professor Robin Behn and graduate student teachers, gives talented high school writers a place to meet peers and mentors who share their passion for putting words on a page. For 12 weeks during the spring semester, the CWC brings students to Morgan Hall, the home of the UA English department, for an in-depth exploration into the art and craft of writing.

CWC students are recruited from Tuscaloosa County public and private schools, as well as homeschool cooperatives. Through a partnership with Jolene Stanford of the Alabama Consortium for Educational Renewal, the CWC has developed a close relationship with area schools, where English teachers and principals recommend students for the program.

In an educational environment increasingly geared toward “teaching to the tests” and results-based curricula, teachers rarely have the time or opportunity to incorporate creative writing into their daily lesson plans. The CWC seeks to supplement the instruction students receive in their high school English classes with engaging and new approaches to writing and reading. Says CWC student Sam Martone, “Usually I don’t have that much time to write in the first place. This gives me a chance to write things besides history essays.”

Student Kaitlyn Bunn adds, “I enjoy learning about specific ways of writing poems. [The CWC] gives me new ideas.”

CWC students are exposed to the work of contemporary poets, essayists, and fiction writers; to writing concepts such as the strength of unexpected metaphors or the absurd; and a wide variety of literary traditions. “If you’re used to writing in a certain way, [CWC classes] make you think outside of your comfort zone,” says student Beth Kennedy. This spring, CWC students have explored questions such as: Can a story be written in the form of a recipe? Can eight people write a poem together? What happens when Little Red Riding Hood meets the Jolly Green Giant? Can you write a poem using Google? And, what is a writer’s notebook? Students meet in small groups during club meetings, where they focus on specific topics in writing. “The small groups let you meet people with the same interests as you,” says student Adam Seale.

The CWC aims to foster a sense of local and global communities of writers, both through reading assignments and through weekly readings by local and UA writers. UA’s creative writing community is a rich and diverse one, with seven professors of creative writing in the English Department, and around 50 graduate students from all over the country. The CWC provides these talented writers an avenue to teach about their passions to an enthusiastic student population. CWC instructor Ryan Browne says that working with talented young writers inspires him as both a teacher and a writer: “This club, this group of people, is outstanding and I am already seeing payoff in my own work.” Instructor Kwoya Fagin adds that working with CWC students is “energizing. It’s exciting and encouraging to see them develop as writers from week to week.”

Currently, Behn and MFA graduate students Cayenne Sullivan and MC Hyland are planning an extension of the club: the CWC Summer Institute. “The benefit of the Summer Institute will be the amount of time students will be able to spend each day on writing,” says Sullivan. The Summer Institute will be an intensive two week writing program, during which students will meet every day for several hours in the afternoon. The Summer Institute will engage students in genre-based workshops in poetry and fiction, as well as offer a variety of writing related electives such as bookbinding, visual-text hybrids, and ekphrastic writing. For more information or to sign up, email them at cwc@bama.ua.edu.

Interested in seeing what the CWC students are up to? This spring session will end with a public reading in room 301 of UA’s Morgan Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, April 24, with a reception to follow at the Gorgas House. Come on down and listen to what these talented young writers have to say!

More information about the CWC, along with examples of student writing, are available at our Web site: http://www.bama.ua.edu/~cwc.