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Published Durham writers teach the next generation at Githens Middle
“You have to promise me that you won’t tell your friends these secrets,” Durham crime novelist Katy Munger told a classroom of Sherwood Githens Middle School students. She was about to reveal a basic storytelling structure and they would never look at movies the same way again.
Munger was one of 16 published novelists, screenwriters, poets and journalists who led the school’s first-ever Eighth Grade Raider Writers Conference on Friday, Dec. 9. Organizer Justine Daniel, a teacher of eighth grade language arts and DPS’s reigning Teacher of the Year, saw an opportunity to excite the school’s students about reading and writing.
“I really believe in the impact of our community on our students,” said Daniel. “And so, what better way to teach students about the passion and creativity of writing than getting people who are actual published writers to come in and share their art with our students?”
“I got to learn about journalism and Young Adult literature,” said student Saleana Zheng. “I liked the subjects and the authors really cared if we learned their genre and cared about us as people. We wrote our own stories and had a fake press conference. It was a cool experience and I hope Githens does it next year.”
Daniel recruited her fellow instructors at the summer Duke Young Writer’s Camp and networked through the Githens PTA, fellow teachers and administrators. “I want students at the end of today to have two drafted pieces in two different genres that they maybe had never been exposed to before,” she said. “Our goal as a school is to increase the submissions to our literary magazine, and so we’re hoping that this will inspire our students to want to be published.”
“This was special to me because I’m a writer and I got to share my writing with other people who do what I do,” said Mataijah Dozier. “I learned that what most people write is from their heart and experiences. I related to it and I wish this was what school was like every day.”
Participating Durham-area writers included Scott Reintgen (science fiction), Katherine Van Dis (short fiction), Kim Arrington (poetry/songwriting), Elaine Taylor (memoir/autobiography), Crystal Simone Smith (poetry), Daniel Kelvin Bullock (hip hop poetry), Diane Taylor (writing for television), Janie Suss (children’s books), Laurie McKay (flash fiction), Michael Acosta (screenwriting), Caitlyn Wheeler (sportswriting), Audra Ang (journalism), Paul B. Thompson (screenwriting), Jean Bolduc (oral history/historical nonfiction), Katy Munger (crime novels) and Erin Fletcher (young adult literature).