WordPlay Cincy
4234 Hamilton Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45223
Hear Our Voices 2023: Creative Writing, Poetry and Theater as Social Action
Grant Application:
Dater funding will support the post-pandemic evolution of our teen programs in creative writing, spoken word and playwriting/theater, and the launch of WordPlay as the regional home of the National Youth Poet Laureate program (confirmed just prior to the pandemic). Returning to in-person programming means it is critical that we invest our energy in rebuilding our community of teen writers—former students, students we engaged for the first time in virtual classrooms during the pandemic, and students we have yet to meet. This means meeting youth where they are to grow awareness of and trust in our programs, along with deepening our partnerships with area schools, teachers and community partners, and when necessary, integrating the successful elements of remote participation when being physically present is not feasible. Funding will allow us to add a part-time Program Coordinator to our staff to lead this initiative.
Goals/Objectives:
With the return to in-person programming in our CPS partner schools and soon in our newly renovated, 7,000 square foot headquarters in Northside, it is critical that we invest our energy into rebuilding our community of teen writers. This entails meeting youth where they are to build awareness and trust of our programs, along with deepening our partnerships with area schools, teachers and community partners, and when necessary, integrating the successful elements of remote participation when being physically present is not feasible.
Our program year presents the extraordinary opportunity to integrate the hard-earned learnings from the past 16+ months with our thoughtfully evolving creative youth development program pedagogy. We know that our high school students are yearning to come together with their peers again in person, and what we now also know is how to provide increased accessibility and inclusion through virtual platforms. We know that our young people want to understand the complex issues of inequity and justice, and we can now give them the tools of Participatory Action Research to use an evidence-based approach to using their writing and performance for social action.
1) Hire a part-time Program Coordinator.
2) Provide professional development for our program staff and teaching artists to continue deepening their understanding of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) for integration into our teen writing and performance programs.
3) Launch the National Youth Poet Laureate program in Cincinnati.
Grant Evaluation Report:
We exceeded our projected goals for this project in most areas of measurement, especially in relationship to community and student engagement. During the 2022-2023 program year, we are pleased to share that we exceeded our defined goals and provided high quality programmatic experiences to the audiences served. Our programs promoted equity and inclusion while delivering best-practice and research-informed methods to schools, partner organizations, Youth Poet Laureate audiences, and our Teaching Artist cohort.
Results:
1) We grew the WordPlay program staff by hiring 2 additional Full Time Program employees; established programs for the duration of the academic year in 7 additional CPS high schools (we projected 5); engaged a minimum of 20 new students at each school, and 700 existing students (projected 300).
2) 25 Teaching Artists participated in YPAR training (minimum of 2 trainings for the cohort) for general knowledge, with 3 Teaching Artists engaging more deeply in ongoing YPAR coaching as well as they lead the YPAR programmatic objectives along with Director of Programming, Amy Tuttle.
3) Launched outreach and awareness campaigns for the NYPL program among area high schools reaching minimum 400 students; conducted application process and selection of Cincinnati’s first 2022 Youth Poet Laureate named Rimel Kamran; establish calendar of 27 local Youth Poet Laureate events (projected 4), engaging audiences of 1500 (projected 100).
Website:
http://www.wordplaycincy.org Amount: $20,000
Date: June 2022
