Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

Writing Our Lives Nurtures Young Writers Online

Friday, October 30, 2020, By Jennifer Russo
Share
School of Education

In October 2019, the Writing Our Lives program marked its 10-year anniversary in the Syracuse community. From its early days in the community rooms of libraries with handfuls of students, to recent years’ programming including conferences with hundreds of participants and after school programs from around Central New York, the Writing Our Lives program has had an impact on a generation of young writers.

Marcelle Haddix

Marcelle Haddix speaks during the Writing Our Lives 10th anniversary conference in 2019.

In this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Writing Our Lives is a virtual experience, but emerging writers are still connected to the very best writers, poets and performers dedicated to nurturing young voices.

This week, students have been receiving daily writing prompts from mentor writers through video on social media, including Abdi Nazemian (“Like a Love Story”) and Jenny Torres Sanchez (“We Are Not From Here”). A virtual conference culminates on Saturday morning with a live, interactive writing and performance session hosted by local poets, authors and artists. To support their writing practice, Writing Our Lives has provided “writing survival kits” for the week including notebooks pens, and snacks that students could pick up at the South Side Communications Center. The kits and conference are supported by Believe in Syracuse and the Department of Reading and Language Arts in the School of Education.

The Writing Our Lives program began shortly after Marcelle Haddix, department chair and Dean’s Professor of Reading and Language Arts, relocated to Syracuse with her family. In early 2009, she participated in a community forum on the state of education in the city of Syracuse, and heard the concerns of parent and community groups about the schooling experiences of Black children.

“My involvement was first as a parent who had a challenging experience with the school district, but also as a literacy scholar and English educator from Syracuse University,” she says. “I listened to the stories from other parents and community members who expressed frustration with the ways they felt the education system was failing their children.”

Haddix recalls that few parents were aware of the local school data that reported a graduation rate hovering around 50 percent for all students but 25 percent for African American male students. As a concerned parent, scholar and community member, she followed up with school leaders and community members to understand the local history of education for African American youth, and wanted to identify solutions to create more positive educational experiences.

Haddix began holding free writing workshops at local community organizations and public libraries. The student interest was high, especially among African American males, with 12-15 students attending each workshop. Building on the interest of the students and parents, she collaborated with local community youth centers and university sponsors to host a youth writing conference in the fall of 2009 that was attended by more than 100 students.

Since that first conference, Writing Our Lives has continued to host an annual youth writing conference and has worked with community, school and university partners to offer Saturday mini seminars on writing, after-school writing programs and summer writing institutes for youth writers in middle and high school.

“I wanted to create spaces where youth writers define, understand, challenge and use writing in and out of school, and where they are critical ethnographers of their own writing lives,” Haddix says. “I wanted to offer writing events for youth writers to be leaders of writing instruction for themselves, teachers, peers and members of the community.”

In this year of the COVID-19 global pandemic, where the lives of young people have been disrupted in immeasurable ways, violence and trauma have become increasingly normalized. Haddix says they see and experience violence on multiple levels—physical, verbal, emotional, intellectual, through media and through bullying. “They are aware of violence against immigrant youth, against Black and Brown youth, and against transgender youth,” she says.

Writing Our Lives serves as a space for healing and for resisting and working against violence. “Through Writing Our Lives, we aim to offer opportunities for students to write about their experiences, to tell their stories and to participate in the global conversation,” Haddix says.

  • Author

Jennifer Russo

  • Recent
  • Syracuse University Press Participating in Path to Open Program
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Cristina Hatem
  • A&S Chemistry Professor Receives Award From the American Chemical Society
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By News Staff
  • ‘Guys and Dolls’ opens Syracuse University Department of Drama 2023/24 Season
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Joanna Penalva
  • Libraries Add MindSpa Wellness Rooms
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Cristina Hatem
  • Syracuse University Announces the Opening of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and Astrophysics
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Kerrie Marshall

More In Health & Society

School of Education Faculty Publish ‘Lesson Study With Mathematics and Science Preservice Teachers’

“Lesson Study with Mathematics and Science Preservice Teachers: Finding the Form” (Routledge, 2023) is a new overview of the fundamentals of lesson study edited by School of Education Dean Kelly Chandler-Olcott, Professor Sharon Dotger and Jen Heckathorn G’22, director for…

International Drug Policy Academy Offers a Unique Opportunity for Students Interested in Addiction Studies

Needing one more class or an independent study to complete a master’s degree in public health, Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics student Emily Graham turned to Public Health Professor Dessa Bergen-Cico for advice and Bergen-Cico offered the opportunity…

Hendricks Chapel Dean, Chaplains and Students Attend Parliament of the World’s Religions

Representatives from Hendricks Chapel recently attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in August in Chicago. This year’s theme was “A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom and Human Rights.” More than 7,000 participants from more than 95 countries, representing…

Roundtable: 3 School of Education Alumni Define ‘Human Thriving’ in the Context of Global Diversity

“Human thriving” is among the areas of distinctive excellence enumerated in the University’s 2023 Academic Strategic Plan. This concept is inspired by the words of Chancellor Erastus Haven. In 1871, he charged Syracuse students “to thrive here, to learn here,…

Lerner Center and Maxwell X Lab Join Sheriff’s Office to Reduce Illicit Drugs’ Impact

The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health and Maxwell X Lab have partnered with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office on an initiative aimed at reducing the impact of opioids and other illicit drugs. The two centers, both…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.