Nakelci Eppinger screams during a speaking exercise in the Orchard Knob Elementary School gymnasium during the Creative Writing Outreach Program. Students from the McCallie School, led by program president Dan Meagher, left, work with fourth- and fifth-grade students to help them improve their writing and speaking skills.
McCallie senior Dan Meagher listens as Dekela Barnes practices her poem in an empty gymnasium to lessen her nervousness.Reading, writing, and arithmetic – the basics of an education, right?
But for some youngsters, writing is the hardest to conquer. That’s why McCallie School freshman English teacher Erin Tocknell started the Creative Writing Outreach Program in the spring of 2012, a volunteer-led effort that pairs McCallie students with fourth- and fifth-graders from Orchard Knob Elementary and Calvin Donaldson Elementary schools.
The McCallie students meet with the youngsters every Saturday throughout the school year, teaching them to improve their writing and speaking skills. Tocknell says the McCallie students plan and execute every detail of the program.
The students’ stories, along with some photographs they took, will be featured in a published journal, “Tales from Donaldson and Orchard,” to be unveiled at a private reception on May 14 at McCallie School. Among those in attendance will be families of the students, representatives of area businesses and teachers.
“The students will read selected works, and the event will act as a launch party for the collaborative journal,” says McCallie senior Dan Meagher, the program’s president.