WordPlay Teen Writing Project

::WordPlay Teen Writing Project::

This is a WordPlay Safe Space

www.wordplaybr.com

the latest word...

Big Buddy Program Presents (April 26-28, 2007)

ALL CITY: the WordPlay Teen Poetry Slam Festival

WordPlay in the news...

Enter Serenity: WordPlay Welcomes a New Mentor Writer

Baton Rouge’s WordPlay Teen Writing Project traffics in safe spaces and scorching syntax. For a year and a half WordPlay staff have worked hard to empower young people in Baton Rouge by supplying them with the knowledge and resources they need to create art, community, and social change through literacy. The frenzy of activity and work constantly happening in the WordPlay office space at the Big Buddy Program is tiring just to watch. We are all thankful - young people and adults - once a month, to find some release, some pat on the back, some right word on the mic, some snatch of applause, some new voice to carry us forward.

"Learning through doing something I love is the best way to learn."

"Poetry is the ear to my thoughts when others don't listen."

"If I wasn't involved in writing, I'd probably be hanging on the corner."

"I've learned that older people actually care what younger people think and feel."

"I've learned that when you write, things come out of you that you didn't know you had in you."

"Poetry is the lines that you write that came from your heart to say what you feel."

"I've learned from WordPlay that poetry doesn't always have to rhyme, that using imagery,

personification, or metaphors etc. can help you get your point across and help it flow."

"Poetry is the raps I write."

"Writing is a skill that everyone can have. But you've got to work at it."

"Poetry is my key to express what I myself can't release from my mind."

"I am a better writer; I don't always use the same words now."

"I'm not as nervous in front of people as I was before."

"I actually want to go to school now, I have to get good grades otherwise my mom won't let me do

WordPlay after school."

"Poetry was boring before WordPlay."

"This is something you can keep and look at in the future so you can build off of it."

"Poetry [before] was just cards at Wal-Mart."

"It helps me with English, I had an F and now I have a B."

"I learned how to express myself in a way that I can only do on paper."

"I learned not to fight about it, but to write about it."

"WordCrew has taken up another part of my life. I have my family - like my regular family at home,

my spiritual family at church, and now this is my writing family."

"I learned that poetry is not just for girls. It's not soft to write poetry."

"Writing is motivation to go to school."

"Writing helps us to learn from each other."

"WordPlay has also helped me on the LEAP test because I am better at reading and understanding

things."

"We like hands on. We learn a lot differently by being hands on."

phone: 225.388.9737

fax: 225.346.8441

email: wordplay@bigbuddyprogram.org

address: 1415 Main Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802

web czar: mysongtrabong@yahoo.com