January 2009

Greetings and all the best to you for a fruitful New Year!

I am writing as Inkberry’s Coordinator for The Write Stuff Program, the creative writing mentor program at Conte Middle School. You may have read about it in Inkmail. Perhaps you also saw the notices in The Advocate,The Berkshire Eagle or The Transcript. I am grateful to be a player in this wonderful partnership between Inkberry, MCLA and Conte Middle School. We really can’t do without each other. Things would simply fall apart without the input and daily effort of each of the partners.

But here’s the real heart of the matter - The Write Stuff program could not exist without the volunteer mentors who are each paired with one or two Conte students. Currently, 36 seventh graders at Conte work every week with a mentor. This allows the relationship to develop over the course of the entire school year. Students can write what they want and in a genre of choice - with a bit of guidance or alignment with a monthly theme. Students may find this freeing, but also challenging, in the midst of preparing for MCAS testing with very specified modes of writing. There are no grades for being a part of Write Stuff. This may come as a novel concept to the student. No worries! Everyone has adjusted to this fact.

Some students are selected because they already think of themselves as writers and want to devote more time to creative writing. Other students come to Write Stuff to learn to better express themselves in the written word outside of the usual classroom pressures. Each student has his or her unique relationship to writing. In Write Stuff and the student-mentor structure, they receive individualized encouragement and understanding.

Much gratitude to all of our mentors - who are students from MCLA and members of the community - for what you are doing and your continuing efforts in the New Year!

We can reach more students with the addition of more mentors. The commitment is one class period a week during the school day. It is not necessary that you consider yourself a writer. You will have plenty of guidance from the coordinators about themes and writing prompts to help get the students writing. New mentors need to begin as soon as possible so as to have a full semester’s worth of sessions. Please call the Inkberry office, 413-664-0775, to speak with Linda White or myself if you are interested in mentoring for Write Stuff.

Please stay tuned later in the spring for the flowering of these budding writers in publication in area newspapers or for a reading of their works at Student Authors Night.