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Creative Writing
Young people write for many different reasons. Some write to get things “off their chests.” Some write as a way of self-expression. Others write to let their friends know what ideas are working through their minds. Whatever the reason, creative writing is ancient as carving stories onto canoes and cave walls. Human beings have always told stories, sought to gather words into beautiful forms.
These days, many young people write poetry for all the above reasons. They write because they need to. Many do so, in varied and beautiful ways. As such, we seek to highlight their creative writing as we work to improve it.
Through various programs, we urge students to write and share their creative writing.
Students working in the Writing Center
Poetry Slams
Carroll has been the home of many spirited poetry slams over the last several years. These events gather from 20 to 100 students to hear one another’s creative works. Students lead and organize these events. Many students will crowd the Augustinian Chapel and a student-poet will come to the microphone to read an original poem about love, fear, pain, humor, all the realities which are part of being a teenager in America today.
YP2YP
Young Poets to Young Poets is a program through which Carroll student-poets spend a day at a local grade school conducting poetry writing workshops for youngsters.
Recently, we have gone to Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian Elementary School and developed a relationship with their 3rd and 5th grade classes. Our students break into teams, gather the young students in class groups and present a couple of poetry writing options to the youngsters. Then Carroll students work individually with the younger students until each student has composed a couple of draft poems. From a poem as simple as using the letters of one’s name to describe one’s best quality, to describing a sad scene on the street where one lives, these poems come right from the hearts of our young charges.
At the end of the day, we gather all the groups together for a large poetry reading. These are encouraging, positive events filled with lots of applause and smiles.
In recent years, we have been to several local elementary schools, including Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian, J.C. Nalle Elementary School in Washington, D.C. and St. Bernard’s Elementary School in Riverdale, Maryland.
This program has been written up in various publications including Imagine, an arts journal from Dublin, Ireland and Vistas, the journal of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Creative Writing Elective Classes
For the past several years, Carroll has offered an elective course in Creative Writing. Taught by Ms. Costello and Mr. Ross, these courses help students, over the course of a semester, to learn different forms of writing, to “workshop” their writing, that is, open it to group review. The Creative Writing course offers elective credit within the English Department. It is open to Carroll’s juniors and seniors.
Students write many different kinds of poetry. They also work on short stories and creative non-fiction.
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