1999 COMING UP TALLER AWARDS

Note from Bill Ivey

Note from John Brademas & Harriet Mayor Fulbright

AWARD RECIPIENTS:
Angkor Dance Troupe

Corcoran Art Mentorship Program (CAMP)

DC WritersCorps

East Bay Center for the Performing Arts

Gallery 37

Hilltop Artists in Residence

Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit

El Puente Arts & Cultural Center

Teen Parent Reading Project

Young Aspirations/Young Artists, Inc.

The 1999 Coming Up Taller Awards Semifinalists

National Jury 

 
 

DC WritersCorps


Michael Billups wows the crowd at the 1999 Bring in Da Slam fundraiser.
Photo: Clifford L. Russell, Jr.
For Jessica Rawls, a student at Hart Middle School in southeast Washington, DC, "Writing has helped me discover places inside and outside myself that I didn't know existed." Since joining DC WritersCorps, she has traveled as a poetry team member, been featured on a national television show, won numerous poetry awards, and read before the President and First Lady at a White House celebration. Without DC WritersCorps, Jessica and more than 1,000 young people would lack opportunities to use the power of the spoken and written word, to strengthen reading and writing skills, to tap productively into their natural love of competition and expression, and to sample wider cultural opportunities.

Begun in 1994 as collaboration between National Service/AmeriCorps and the National Endowment for the Arts, DC WritersCorps got its start as part of a national program with other sites in the Bronx and San Francisco. Now a project of the Humanities Council of DC, DC WritersCorps initially provided services to a broad spectrum of underserved communities before focusing its full attention on serving youth in public schools and public housing. Once a week at all 11 middle schools, accomplished writers conduct school-based writing workshops for the entire school year. In after-school writing clubs, two-hour sessions provide opportunities beyond the classroom as well as chances to enjoy plays, readings, tours, and other events through collaborations with Washington theaters, museums, and libraries. In the after-school Mentors Reading Club, students read books provided free to them, then come together with corporate professionals and authors to discuss what they've read.

And then there is the popular, exuberant, and high-profile Youth Poetry Slam League sponsored by Borders Books & Music and designed to let young people plug into the fun of poetry through healthy competition. The Washington Post's Jacqueline Trescott caught the essence of the slam experience when she wrote: "The WritersCorps Youth Poetry Slam League has made the reading and writing of literature as popular as sporting events. Students who once would have bristled at the idea of being called a poet are now clamoring for the limited space available in the after-school writing clubs."

DC WritersCorps

Humanities Council of Washington, DC
925 U Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202-387-8391
Fax: 202-387-8149
E-Mail: mboston1@wdchumanities.org
URL: www.wdchumanities.org

Focus: Creative Writing, Literature
Number Participating: 1,000
Ages: 12-17
Annual Budget: $256,000

Schools participating in the DC WritersCorps program have credited the program with helping to decrease truancy and to increase student interest in reading and writing.