Local Highlight: Red River Valley Writing Project

Turtle Mountain teens at the open mic night on July 31, with National Student Poet Weston Clark (holding guitar)

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards’ national office in New York City is dedicated to growing and supporting local programs across the country. Our Affiliates are doing great work in their communities, and we love hearing about their outreach efforts, their students, and their programs. This month, we shine the spotlight on the Red River Valley Writing Project at North Dakota State University, which manages a statewide art and writing program and is part of the National Writing Project. Here’s what the staff at the Red River Valley Writing Project had to say about Awards activity in their region:

In North Dakota, the Red River Valley Writing Project partners with the Plains Art Museum to serve as the statewide Affiliate for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. We just finished our first season, and we are pleased to say that student entries increased by 600%! We hosted our first state awards ceremony at the Plains Art Museum, where Becky Dunham and her staff curated an exhibit of student work.

Exhibition of student work in the Katherine Kilbourne Burghum Center for Creativity of the Plains Art Museum

We are hoping to reach even more teens in our sparsely populated state this year. To accomplish this, we are getting out and traveling around the state to promote the Scholastic Awards and support student writers and artists. Olivia Edwardson, a teacher leader in the Red River Valley Writing Project, gave a roundtable presentation on the Scholastic Awards in Mandan at the North Dakota Council for Teachers of English Conference in July.

Nathan Maliscke with his painting, “Don’t Be Like the Rest of Them”

This past summer, we partnered with Turtle Mountain Community Schools and the National Student Poets Program to hold a week-long workshop for fifteen teen artists and writers on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, near the Canadian border. National Student Poet Weston Clark assisted with this project and led an engaging praise poetry workshop. Students had a variety of workshops to choose from, such as puppetmaking (taught by Sheyanna Ashes and Sam Poitra), slam poetry (Hannabah Blue), flash fiction (Lise Erdrich), oral narratives/dramatic script (Caitlin Johnson), hip hop (Mic Jordan), digital art (Jacob Laducer), chalk drawing (Kathy Nadeau), printmaking (Laura Youngbird), journalism (Caitlin Johnson), memoir (Denise Lajimodiere), and photography (Caitlin Johnson). We also scheduled time for the students to engage in a deep revision process.

Our philosophical approach to workshops is to create an Indigenized version of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). We drew on the cultural strengths of the region by seeking out Native American writers and artists to lead workshops for students. Ten Native artists and writers modeled the values of the Ojibwe community: love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth. We also recruited workshop leaders from the group that presented at our Circle of Nations workshop last fall. By drawing from regional expertise, we contributed to building leadership capacity in local teachers while simultaneously building bridges between Native schools. This “teachers-teaching-teachers” model is a hallmark of the National Writing Project, and we are applying it intentionally and strategically for the benefit of Native American students. For example, Laura Youngbird was a teacher at Circle of Nations when we did a one-day art and writing workshop for students there last year. She then helped plan the workshop for Turtle Mountain and led a session in printmaking.

Laura Youngbird (second from left), program director for Native American artist outreach at the Plains Art Museum, led a printmaking workshop for students

Each day of the summer workshop started with a writing prompt and ended with an inspirational talk or performance. Author Lise Erdrich’s mother visited to encourage future writers and Native rapper Mic Jordan gave a performance. The school provided lunch each day.

Lise Erdrich leads a flash fiction writing workshop for students at Turtle Mountain Middle School

Denise Lajimodiere (right) leads students Jeryn (left) and Rick in memoir writing

On the final day, students practiced performing their work, and an open mic was held on Friday night at Turtle Mountain Tribal College. The artwork was on display, and we had a great turnout of community members who saw and heard the performers. Some of the students collaborated on a musical performance at the end of the night. We hope these students will submit their work to the 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!

Rick Belgarde reads his work at the open mic, which was emceed by Navajo slam poet Hannabah Blue

Native hip hop artist Mic Jordan, a graduate of Turtle Mountain School, engages the students in singing with him — Native hip-hop artist Mic Jordan, a graduate of Turtle Mountain School, engages the students in singing with him

Future plans are to reach more areas of the state of North Dakota and add more workshops to our offerings.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are proud to work with organizations like the Red River Valley Writing Project to help talented students receive recognition for their creative efforts. By partnering together, the Red River Valley Writing Project and the Scholastic Awards give our youth the support they need to become lasting members of their art and writing communities.