Leading Young Writers Workshop 6

This is us, LYW6, all seventeen of us. We have spent the last three days together at SELI in Tengbeh Town, in Freetown, working on what process writing is, and how to use it in after-school SELI Young Writers clubs as well as in writing classes. You see us gathered here just before certificates were awarded.

There are teachers here sent by nine schools included in the Seli River Writing Project—schools located in Joe Town near Waterloo, Goderich, Lunsar, Kabala, Gbenikoro, Yiraia and Dankawalie.

For some, this was a refresher course; for others, it was a training for club facilitators needed to replace teachers who have moved on. And for three schools, it was an initial training to open a new club. It was marvelous having the experienced facilitators present! They shared their knowledge and learned new tricks.

We spent the three days working on writing theory, how to run clubs, English grammar and usage, and the elements of process writing that can be introduced one-by-one into writing classes without much fuss.

Part of each day was conducted like a process writing workshop, so the teachers could experience themselves what they would be asking their students to do. For our mini lessons each day, we used The SELI Wordbook. In the photo, you see a content conferencing group, listening to one person read his personal experience aloud as the others write questions they plan to ask him when he is finished.

Thank you to the SELI donors who made this training workshop possible, and to this wonderful group of teachers and their schools for appreciating the importance of writing!