Youth from the King County Housing Authority’s Burndale Homes community recently participated in projects to boost their writing skills and express themselves in confident, positive ways.
Peers, families and adult supporters from the Burndale community and the surrounding neighborhood recently gathered to celebrate their accomplishments. The hour-long ceremony was a showcase event to view students’ selected writing pieces. All of the young writers participate in after-school programs at the Neighborhood House Youth Tutoring and Resource Center in Auburn.
Neighborhood House, serving low-income communities in King County, launched a project-based learning approach with its after-school programs in January to impart writing skills through high-interest programming. The projects involved the students in the writing process, complete with editing stages, to guide from first to final drafts.
Throughout the project, NH staff introduced practical writing lessons that covered elements like voice, conventions (grammar, punctuation, organization) and word choice. The teens addressed dating violence, drugs, stress, gossip and other issues affecting them and their peers. Younger youth interviewed and wrote about a good friend of theirs.
The writing projects culminated in a contest for the students, with prizes sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of the Valley in Auburn and Green River Community College. Elementary, middle school and high school entries were judged separately on the basis of ideas, conventions and presentations. Points also were given for levels of participation in the writing and editing process.
Judges were members of the community and Neighborhood House staff. Community judges included, Mark Klaas, editor of the Auburn Reporter, Jennifer Fairchild, librarian of Auburn Regional Library and Wendy Price, a member of the Kiwanis Club of the Valley in Auburn.
In total, 17 entries were contributed, with a total of seven winners. Three elementary students, Rebecca Thareek (grade 5), Vlod Sokalskyy (grade 3) and Blaze Long (grade 4) took first, second and third prizes, respectively. They each won a Subway gift card – $20 for the first, $15 for the second and $10 for the third.
Desmin Steed and Deyton Wilson, won the first and second prizes in the middle school category. respectively. Steed won $50, and Deyton won $25.
Latesha Wilson and Nya Thareek won the first and second prizes in the high school category, respectively. Latesha won $50, and Nya won $25.
Having completed these recent non-fiction projects, the Neighborhood House youth at Burndale Homes have embarked on writing fiction through
short stories and comics, and will explore their community through writing and photography this summer.
