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After three years, Writers Week at Hazelwood West High School has become an annual celebration of the written word. Students, faculty and invited guests who have made names for themselves as professional writers share their experiences, stories and thoughts in sessions held throughout the week (held earlier this month)

Guests for 2011 included poets, performance poets, novelists, young adult authors, songwriters, journalists and more.

Jodi Douglas and Douglas Jameson, communications skills teachers, coordinate the event.

“Writers Week gets bigger and better every year,” said Jameson. “The first year, we were still wrapping our heads around what Writers Week would look like and whether the students and staff would feel as passionately about it as we did. It quickly became clear that they did.

“Last year, we expanded our vision, reaching out for more nationally known writers, and now, in our third year, we’ve expanded even further when scheduling coincidences afforded us the opportunity to collaborate directly with Fremd High School (Ill.) and share several of our guest writers.”

The association with Fremd High School, located in Palatine, IL, comes from Douglas and Jameson’s working relationship with Gary Anderson and Tony Romano, teachers at Fremd.  Many years ago, they started a Writers Week program at the school. Douglas got the idea to start a similar program at Hazelwood West after attending a presentation by the pair at a National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention. Last November, the four of them co-presented a session called “Writers Week: How Two Schools Make Writers into Rock Stars” at the conference.

“Writers Week is important because it allows students to have a voice. They are given a venue with which to express themselves,” said Douglas.

“Students are also able to see numerous ways in which they use writing skills in their everyday lives. There is good writing outside of the academic, outside of the analysis paper. We try to expose students to multiple genres of writing,” she continued.

Jameson thinks Writers Week is important in that it “provides a forum for our student writers to share their stories. Listening to the variety of writers – student, faculty and professional – throughout the week also allows students to understand the power of words and the importance of language beyond a classroom environment.”

Douglas and Jameson said many memorable moments took place during the week.

Jameson was impressed by “the bravery and courage of a number of our student presenters who shared incredibly emotional aspects of their lives.”

“On Thursday, the combination of performance poets Sierra DeMulder and Buddy Wakefield and some of our strongest student presenters created an emotional and inspirational knockout!” he continued.

Douglas recalls “watching students meet, thank and talk to our guest presenters, and the excitement of administrators from Troy High School after witnessing our event” as being memorable.

To evaluate Writers Week, Douglas said that “lots of questions are posed to our students and colleagues in order to get a sense of what they did and didn’t like, who they enjoyed the most and least, etc. Students are pretty open about what they do and don’t like. It’s mainly a matter of listening. Students post reactions on the Ning site, and we also use the thank you letters we require as a gauge for what they liked most.”

Douglas, Jameson and several teachers require a Writers Week assignment that asks students to write reaction papers and thank you notes. A survey is sent to the guest writers.

For 2012, they hope to see an increase in student applications for participation, as well as faculty writers. (story courtesy of the Hazelwood District Communications Dept.)

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