Date: Jun 11, 2007

GIRLS FROM ROOSEVELT JUNIOR/SENIOR SCHOOLS CELEBRATED THE POWER OF THE PEN AT YOUNG WOMEN'S WRITING PROJECT AT HOFSTRA, JUNE 15

Hofstra Program Uses Poetry to Encourage Students to Continue Their Education and Set High Goals for Their Future

Who:  Thirteen 7th graders, five 8th graders, nine freshmen, three sophomores and one junior from Roosevelt Junior/Senior School completed the spring 2007 Young Women’s Writing Project at Hofstra.    

Their family, friends and Hofstra University literacy experts.

What:  The Roosevelt Young Women's Writing Project, funded by Planned Parenthood of Nassau County and Hofstra’s Reading/Writing Learning Clinic at the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, was started five years ago. The students are bussed weekly to the Hofstra campus where they work with the University's literacy faculty and learn how to channel their hopes, fears and thoughts about their future into poetry and a journal that they are supposed to keep. 

For 2007 13 new girls joined the program. Additionally, 18 graduates of the program returned to further hone their writing skills and also mentor their younger classmates. That the students who go through the program often want to return to work with their younger classmates has been a wonderful and unexpected result of the project.    

On June 15, the 7th graders "graduated" from this year's program. The celebration at Hofstra included all of the students reading excerpts from the work they produced while they were here. Their families were in attendance to cheer them on. This is typically a very emotional event because for many parents, this was the first time they will hear their daughters’ poetry and innermost thoughts on life.

When: Friday, June 15, 2007 at 6 p.m.    

Where: Hofstra University, Business Development Center, room 246. The BDC is located on Hofstra’s South Campus, on the second floor of the Axinn Library.

How:  For information on this program call the Hofstra’s Reading/Writing Learning Clinic at (516) 463-6146.