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Friday, September 10, 2010

Leading Young Writers in Kabala

SELI has just finished conducting the second 40-hour teacher training Leading Young Writers workshop, this time with ten teachers in the Kabala area, in the far north of Sierra Leone. The teachers will be facilitating process-writing Young Writers clubs in four schools there: Kabala Secondary School, Loma Secondary School, Dankawalie Secondary School, and Ahmadiyya Muslim Agricultural Secondary School (AMASS). AMASS provided the venue for the workshop. It was a lively one and we were all sorry to see it end. Every activity added to the participants' expertise in one of three areas: the theory of teaching writing; the role of the facilitator; and participating in the writing process. The afternoon writing sessions simulated the Young Writers clubs themselves. The participants, many of whom had not known each other before, are determined to continue writing with the ongoing encouragement of their fellow participants and SELI.
SELI donated to each school a box of supplies to be used by the writing clubs.
Here, supplies are being handed over to the vice principal of Dankawalie Secondary School, Mr. Kargbo.
Young Writers clubs aim to develop young authors while they also improve the communication, cultural awareness, and thinking skills of junior secondary school students in the schools where they operate. SELI believes that writing is best taught by teachers who write, so as we visit the clubs during the year we will also be doing all we can to encourage the teachers in their own writing.