Creative Writing

We start every session with a prompt that develops the young people’s critical thinking skills, increases their focus, and opens up their creativity. Sometimes, this involves identifying the most powerful lyrics in a music video and, at other times, providing a poetry writing prompt that engages young people in responding

to a personal concern or interest. The youth then write free-style based on a topic or idea that emerges from the prompt, and Elgin helps them restructure their typed-up writing based on how they naturally read the material. Finished pieces produced by this process have been proudly submitted to Chicago’s 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Award poetry contest.