ywp blog

An update, with music to read by

A few random items of interest over the last few days at Young Writers Project, Inc.

First, feast your eyes on this recent submission by a student on youngwritersproject.org. This was done through vuvox.com which is an amazing site that allows users to create collages and multi-media visual stories. Great fun. Student's name is Bridget Iverson; she's at Mount Mansfield Union High School. Since this column is a bit narrow, this is best seen by clicking on the box next to the "SHARE" in the bottom right to view it on full screen.

Some other news:

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Vermont Writes Day -- II

UPDATED

We had so much fun with the first Vermont Writes Day, we decided to do a second and a third. We held the second one on March 17.  (Go to vermontwrites.ywpvt.net to see a sampling of student work from the day.) The third is planned for May 5 and will focus on farming and will include this prompt:

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The economic reality

As a journalist, I was always trained to assume nothing, to continually reassess; to figure out how to get over, around, under hurdles and obstacles and to get it done -- there's a paper to get out.

This puts me in good stead to run a nonprofit in this economic climate.

So we are experiencing donors who have less to give, foundations who have more applicants for less money and corporate sponsors who are getting hit from all sides.

Today we had a meeting with one company that is deeply interested in partnering with us. It has already made some commitments and is now assessing at what level they will support us in the coming fall. We've been talking since June and we have determined our goals are the same -- to help community; our missions are similar -- using digital technology to improve learning; and we like each other.

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New partner

Today we travelled to Childen's Literacy Foundation, a small nonprofit in Waterbury Center, Vt., that brings books to rural communities as well as immigrant families, children of prisoners, families in shelters and others down on their luck and situation. CLIF also sponsors writer and illustrator workshops in schools. Some of the presenters, poet Leland Kinsey for one, are amazing.

Our plan to partner is this: We will help publish the best work from the workshops. We also will probably build a Web site for use by a CLIF workshop this spring. Last year, one of our partner schools -- Marcotte Central School -- were preparing for a visit by a wonderful author, Helen Frost. The teacher had students write in Frost's style and to emulate one of Frost's specialties: Shape poems. Then the teacher, in anticipation of Frost's visit, invited her onto the site to view the students' work and comment.

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YWP History -- the short version

 Champlain Mill -- Our New Home : Winooski River floods Mill in 1927. YWP offices are about 8 windows down in the submerged portion. New address: YWP, Champlain Mill, 20 Winooski Falls Way, Suite #4, Winooski, VT, 05404.

Well here I go... A brief history of the Young Writers Project, call it the elevator pitch:

• Thirty-two year career in journalism; had fun, did some good but was getting tired of cut, cut cut.
• Created a weekly feature to publish best work by students and to promote best practices for teaching writing. In three years it had ballooned -- about 850 submissions in 2005/06, and I was doing it all at home -- making pages, doing a Dreamweaver web site and so and so....
• In early January 2006 I decided to kill the project at the end of the school year. A week later... 

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