Young Men's Writing Project

The Reading/Writing Learning Clinic has developed several community outreach programs specifically for our neighbors in the Hempstead, Uniondale, and Roosevelt communities to make our services affordable and accessible to all. An example includes the Young Men’s Writing Project (YMWP), an after-school space for middle school young men in seventh and eighth grade. In this creative writing program, participants have the opportunity to develop their literacy strengths and explore their identities as they discovered the power of the pen. Sponsored in 2009 by the Verizon Foundation, the YMWP makes use of multimedia technology to expand the types of literacy experiences available to young adolescents. Participants are explicitly involved in developing digital literacy projects by using computers and multimodal literacy tools to develop 21st century literacies. Through digital storytelling, this year’s participants of the YMWP explored their interests in everything from sports to the road to civil rights in America as well as their dreams, goals, and powerful personal experiences. Samples of the digital stories created by the YMWP can be viewed by clicking the links below.