The wait is over! Our Summer 2013 workshop schedule is here. Registration will open Wednesday, June 19, at 7pm.

We’ve got workshops for all ages and a huge (huge!) assortment of Drop-in Writing times to choose from, so go ahead and get acquainted with our offerings by clicking right here.

We are sincerely hoping that workshop registration glitches are a thing of the past, but we are still adjusting to our new website and registration system. Please be patient with us, and please don’t hesitate to email Catherine@826michigan.org or call (734) 761-3463 with questions or concerns.

We can’t wait to write with you this summer!

This has been a year of growth and change for 826michigan, and nowhere more so perhaps than in our after-school tutoring program at Ypsilanti Middle School. With the advent of Program Coordinator D’Real Graham, and our partnership with Bright Futures, the program really kicked into high gear in 2012-2013.

Things will have to change again as the whole Ypsilanti community adjusts to the upcoming consolidation of the Ypsilanti and Willow Run school districts. We’re adjusting too. But we know that, thanks to the partnerships we’ve developed with community organizations like Eastern Michigan University, tutoring will be going strong next year and into the future.

We now turn to Program Manager Catherine and Program Coordinator D’Real to tell us more about Family Writing Nights, one successful aspect of this year’s programming at Ypsilanti Middle School.

–Editors Amy– 

Program Manager Catherine Calabro: As followers and fans of 826michigan, you have likely seen some remarkable highlights of our YMS after-school program over the past few months on social media and in our newsletter. The program has gone through a transformation over the past year as we’ve partnered with an amazing team at Eastern Michigan University to make something new and dynamic (Tutoring! Clubs! Field trips! Writing Nights!) for the seventh and eighth grade students at Ypsilanti Middle School. Bright Futures, Office of Academic Service Learning, VISION, and the EMU Writing Project have created a caring, supportive, and challenging homework help and youth development opportunity for these students four days a week after school. D’Real, can you elaborate on some of the highlights of the year at YMS?

Program Coordinator D’Real Graham: Of course, Catherine, I’d be happy to! The number of student participants grew exponentially immediately following our first day of drawing robots, composing expository stories about why every student deserves an apple-eating, flying robot, and peer editing comical short fiction narratives (about robots, of course). Each day students realized they had the opportunity to work one-on-one or in small groups to complete their homework assignments while also gaining a deeper understanding of their core subjects. Even when students didn’t have homework, they came running into our “third-space”: excited to write something new, read something different, and experiment with expressing themselves creatively. After a few weeks of bonding, we became a team . . . no, wait, we developed into a family.

We are so grateful to have partnered with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project to organize two evenings of family writing for our students, families, and the YMS staff. The workshops were a part of the Family Literacy Initiative, a series of community writing classes that support parents as they guide their students to become confident writers. Family writing nights at YMS were an incredible success—at our first event in March, Kim Pavlock and Chelsea Lonsdale presented a “Family Writing Fun Night,” complete with stations of collaborative writing games for students and parents, with plenty of time for sharing. In May, Karen Hoffman and Joy Versluis presented “Make Way for Writing: A Family Writing Workshop” through which students and parents reminisced and wrote together about their favorite play places.

Creative juices flowed as families huddled around tables equipped with writing utensils and blank canvases in the form of paper! Together families amused themselves with and bonded over shared experiences evoked through writing prompts and games. The workshop compelled families to engage in meaningful, collaborative tasks that ultimately allowed each family member to embrace the joy of exercising their creative dexterity. The facilitators did an excellent job sharing practical ways to integrate writing projects into the household.

All of us at 826michigan and the YMS tutoring program send our deepest to Kim Pavlock, Chelsea Lonsdale, Karen Hoffman, and Joy Versluis for hosting a social and creative outlet for families to enjoy!

The article focuses on 826michigan’s new In-School Residencies at three Detroit schools, which have been in place since February 2013.

Read the article here.

Sometimes (rarely) it’s bad news. Sometimes (mostly) it’s, “what time does tutoring start?”, “when do you release your next workshop schedule?”, or “can you fix my iPod that I just ran over in my car?”. (Those last ones make us so sad!)

But sometimes, a phone call is VERY good.

Like the one we received about eight weeks ago from Firestone Complete Auto Care, which is located right around the corner from us at Division and Huron St in downtown Ann Arbor. We had taken our donated Subaru Outback (much-loved, if with its own little quirks) to be serviced back in the fall, and one day out of a clear blue sky the Firestone folks called us to say, in so many words, “Do you need new tires on that car? We were just thinking about you and wondering if you needed new tires!”.

And let us tell you, when we received that call the clear blue sky suddenly started raining glitter, flowers, and hearts down upon us. Because yes, indeed, we needed new tires very much.

Sometimes generosity surprises us, and we here at 826michigan count this among the best feelings in the world. To know that our downtown neighbors were thinking of us and extended a hand to help means more to us than we can really say. So we, and our beloved 826-Mobile, send a big robot thank you to Jerry Weaver and the crew at Firestone Complete Auto Care — our June Supporters of the Month!

Holly Painter! Poet. Intern. Astronaut.

It’s been a little over a year since Holly first walked through the red velvet curtain at 826michigan, on what turned out to be a very momentous day. Holly’s very first experience with 826michigan was with the very first iteration of what we call “the mystery field trip”. It is ostensibly called that because it entreats fourth- and fifth-grade students to solve the mystery of who stole Dr. Blotch’s secret diary, but on that day it truly was a mystery to us. To put it a bit less formally, we had no idea what we were going to do.

A few very large coffees, some wacky costumes, and one frantic brainstorming session later, we came up with a field trip wherein four volunteers (including Holly) played four different members of Dr. Blotch’s retinue, each with a motive to steal the Blotch diary. We sent suspects up to be interrogated by the fourth-grade detectives (very capable interrogators, we assure you), and asked the students to write down what they believed had occurred.

Against the odds, it turned out to be a very successful field trip and we are now performing it at regular intervals with close to the same format we came up with on that one, fateful morning.

Holly showed up for her very first day of volunteering and was promptly handed a bowler hat and a trench coat and told to create the character of Dr. Blotch’s psycho-analyst. A lesser individual might have been intimidated. Might have backed right through those red velvet curtains. Might have said, “Uh, I’ll wear the bowler hat but I WON’T do a funny accent.”

Fortunately, a lesser individual didn’t come to 826 that morning. Holly Painter did.

In the year and change since the original Mystery Field Trip, Holly has bound more chapbooks, spray-painted more carpet squares, and run more field trips of her very own than we can count. She’s become a charter member of the 826michigan volunteer book club, The Reading Robots, exposing us to novels like Cloud Atlas and The Selected Works of TS Spivet. She’s sung holiday carols whilst wrapped in aluminum foil, and successfully Charade-d through rounds of Celebrity at board game nights. She’s raised money for our programs during last October’s Great Write Off and March’s Trivia For Cheaters.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and soon it will be time for us to wish a tearful goodbye to Holly as she prepares to move to Singapore with her fiancee Emily. Before we do though, we’ve got to take a moment to acknowledge Holly and the many contributions she made to our programs in the 2012-2013 school year.

Bon voyage and thank you so very much, Holly! With you around, 826michigan has become more fearless, more friendly, and more fun.

Robot Revolution posters measure 18 inches by 24 inches and are printed with love and care by Print-Tech. 

This Bastille Day, Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair is pleased to present you with these one-of-a-kind limited edition Robot Revolution propaganda posters designed by the talented and generous Oliver Uberti.

\

R-Day Is Near! — $15

Keep Grammar Complicated! — $15

Robots: A Good Idea! — $15

It Just Needs To Be Unstoppable — $15

Set Of All Four — $50

Click HERE to pre-order your Robot Revolution posters! Expected ship date is July 14, 2013.

We know it has been a while — too long — since we published an essay on this blog, The Staple.

Fortunately, staples don’t go bad. (As we can attest, given the state of our supply shelves.) And this essay will, we hope, be worth the wait.

Magdalena Zenaida is a workshop leader and volunteer who says, “I started volunteering for 826 after I spent time teaching in Peru.  I had a much more difficult teaching environment in the slums of Colombia a few years later, and a lot of the philosophy of 826 helped prepare me for a classroom with little resources and zero structure.  It really let me see how strikingly similar children are in all environments in some ways and how we connect with them as volunteers.”

This piece gave us chills — and a renewed sense of energy for the work of 826. Read on. 

–Editors Amy–

Further Afield

In a class of energetic children, Juan was somehow simultaneously the wildest, and the quietest.  During games, and outside of the class, he was full of roars and exclamations — a total chatterbox.  During lesson times, he was silent, often distracted. It was only a few days into classes that the other students told me that Juan couldn’t read. When I asked him to look at a book with me after class, he just looked at the book and said that he saw nothing. I nudged him a little further and he shrugged his shoulders resolutely and said, “I can’t read.”

“So you can’t tell me anything that’s going on in this story?” I asked.  Then he smiled and pointed at the pictures, animating a fairy tale with heroic words and vivid descriptions.  He saw the interest in my eyes and said, “I write poetry too.”

He began reciting his own verses like a skilled orator, creating a poem that I kept for myself, and printed out for him too. Recognizing his talent, he began to participate in our classes, as the descriptor of events and the connector of ideas.

Yet he had already imbued himself with a number of unfair nicknames and destinies according to things he had heard and overheard in the barrio.  It wasn’t long before I knew his family better (the make-shift neighborhood classroom was their back porch) and I asked his mother about his difficulty reading.  She said that Juan was born too young and offered to take me to see the learning specialist he was able to see once a week as part of a government-assisted program.

We walked into a sterile room at the end of Juan’s lesson.  He was swinging his legs and looking around the room as absently as when I had first seen him.  I was conscious of my role as a supplemental educator, alongside those who work in tough conditions permanently, and I let Juan’s mother introduce me to his assistant.  She said,

“His teacher is trying to help him learn in another class, could you explain to her why he struggles to learn?”

“He doesn’t know how to read,” the assistant answered.

“He seems to recognize words sometimes, but it seems like he puts them together backwards…sometimes he write the letters backwards.  Do you think he could be dyslexic?” I asked.

“He has no reading skills,” she answered.  “I have another lesson to teach.”  The dialogue had ended, and Juan’s mother had a pleasant, bittersweet look of resignation.  Juan bounded up to her, full of questions as always, thin arms hurled around her waist like rubber bands.  He was excited just to have us there with him, before we parted for our respective homes on opposite sides of the highway that separated the shantytown from the city.

I did some more research and went back to spend more time with Juan and his family after class.  His mother and I went through books and pages with him while letters, words, and numbers jumbled together in all sorts of patterns for him.  It was certain that Juan had a learning difficulty that required a learning specialist that could help him with more than just repetition of the same basic reading practices.  I wasn’t trained in that field, and his school didn’t have those kinds of programs.  The school struggled to run for a half-day.

Those are the difficult volunteer moments, recognizing one’s limitations, of the desire to help, the ability to help, and how far one can, or should extend their reach.  Yet it is the kind of moment that volunteering in-residence at 826 helped prepare me for.  Being an assistant to teachers, the 826 volunteer brings passion, commitment, and creativity without interference.  It’s a position completely of service to the teacher and student.  That spirit of service is one half of what makes 826 brilliant.

The creativity — the raw, unbridled spirit of imagination and exploration — is the other half.  As part of 826 I’ve seen the breadth of the writing parameters given to children of all ages, the glee in the freedom of expression.  I knew from the trainings and handbooks that this was an organization built on the hearts on the students, and far from the study of grammar and perfection (gargoyles of the insecure student).  It is a cultivation of creativity and self-expression in the written form.

I couldn’t teach Juan to read beyond his learning difficulty myself, but I could unleash his wild imagination.  I decided our next class project could be chosen from a number of mediums, one of which was drama.  He paired up with his best friend who wrote down Juan’s thundering monologues about subjects like the fraternity of man and the dignity of animals.  He was infectious, and the other students abandoned their plans to create dramas as well.  It all culminated into one fantastic performance.  Its something I learned at 826, practiced as far away as Colombia, and re-affirm for myself all the time — we all have a creative, valuable voice, and there isn’t just one way to use it.

Yes, it’s true! As part of our holistic tutoring program, students at Ypsilanti Middle School engage in all sorts of fun activities including yoga, gardening (thanks to our friends at Growing Hope!), mix-master classes, and mentorship clubs. By the time students arrive in the tutoring space at YMS, they’ve already had a loooooooong day of sitting in a classroom — and as we all know, sitting all day is no fun for anybody, much less an active 12- or 13-year-old.

That’s where AASY Action comes in. AASY Action is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to providing yoga classes to people who may not otherwise have access to them. 826michigan has partnered with AASY Action and its leader, Laurie Blakeney of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga, to bring teacher Peggy Kwisuk Hong to YMS for yoga classes once a week. 

We asked Peggy to write a few lines describing what it’s like to lead yoga classes with YMS students, and she returned with this, which we can’t help but print in its entirety because we LOVE it

During adolescence, when our bodies are changing faster than our minds can keep up with, what is the role of yoga? The students come to their mats self-conscious, embarrassed, and anxious. They don’t even want to take their socks off, for the feet are a surprisingly vulnerable part of the body. During our hour together I joke around with them, affirm them, and try to nurture them. We move fast through yoga poses, one after another, jumping in and out, back and forth. I model “not being afraid to make a fool of myself” and tell stories about my three young adult children. They notice the tattoo under my sleeve. I tell them. “it’s a yoga tattoo. and I’ll show it to you after class.” When we do seated poses, we look at those lowly feet of ours, stretch the toes, and celebrate them. I give them a homework assignment of coming up with a trick or game to do with their feet. At the end they lie down, and after they work out their giggles and wiggles, become quiet and settled. Maybe, just maybe, over the course of their week, they will remember a pose or two, or remember what it felt like to lie down and listen to the rhythm of their breath, and maybe even look at their feet and marvel at what those feet can do.

Thank you so much for those words, Peggy, and for your work at YMS!

We also asked Laurie a few questions about AASY Action and life in Ann Arbor:

How did you hear about 826michigan and why did you want to become involved?
I am interested in all the arts non-profits in Ann Arbor and have known of 826 since it first arrived in Ann Arbor.  My son Newcombe Clark has worked with 826 in the past.  My yoga school, the Ann Arbor School of Yoga, hosted a free yoga class to 826 National members when your annual meeting was held here in Ann Arbor a few summers ago.

It is AASY Action that is partnering up with 826michigan to offer the yoga classes at Ypsilanti Middle School.  AASY Action is a separate entity from my yoga studio.  It is a 501(c)3 organization offering Iyengar Yoga classes to folks who possibly would not have access to trained teachers, good equipment, etc otherwise.  AASY Action is funded through donations from the students of Ann Arbor School of Yoga.

What is your favorite (non-826michigan) thing about life in Ann Arbor?  

I was born and raised in SE Michigan, and love our state.  I moved to Ann Arbor straight out of high school in 1971 and have enjoyed the arts and culture in Ann Arbor.  So family, love of Michigan, and the arts keep me in Ann Arbor.

Family, love of Michigan, and the arts: sounds great to us! We send our sincere thanks to Laurie, Peggy, and the patrons of AASY Action for making this important partnership possible. 

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a few Triangle Poses to get to ourselves. Namaste, everyone!

In the grand starry sky that is the world of 826michigan volunteers, In-School Residencies volunteers aren’t always flashy comets, meteors, or UFOs. In fact they are more likely to be a Vega, Arcturus, or Betelgeuese: a steady shining presence that brightens the whole sky whether or not observers realize it.

Our In-Schools program is based around consistency — it’s really special for a student to know that the person they are working with will come back week after week — which is maybe why it tends to attract some of the most consistent, reliable people we know.

Like Rachel Goulet! Rachel is into her THIRD year of volunteering, in the words of Volunteer Coordinator Frances Martin, “reliably and wonderfully”. Although she is currently serving at Perry Child Development Center in Ypsilanti, she’s also worked with Ann Arbor’s Scarlett Middle School (the site that produced our upcoming major publication, All I Could Do Was Look Up: Anatomy of A Middle School — stay tuned for more about that!).

As you most likely know, we can wax rhapsodic about our Volunteers of the Month for pages and pages (and often do!). But in this case, we’ll let someone else speak for us. Someone else who really knows what’s up where it comes to excellence in the classroom: Nicole Courtney, our partnering teacher at Perry.

This is what Ms. Courtney has to say about Rachel:

Learn more about our Drop-in tutoring program right here, or sign up to volunteer!