California ranks among the lowest states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) because of the high number of English learners.
Create Now strives to help disadvantaged students in Title 1 schools through our popular writing program, From Inspiration to Publication, where youth create stories and poems, plus draw cartoons. They use their imaginations to share ideas and collaborate to come up with a title and theme. The outcome is a published book, which they can treasure and show off to family and friends.
Thanks to the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, we recently implemented this program at Logan Middle School in Echo Park, where only 25{aae7c8e07d59d4d87ab7a1ab908a4553f02e35e8a556b54e4d8c9c7edd1dc3f3} of the students are proficient in English. They created a wonderful book called “Weird Things.” Check out this short video:
We’d also like to express our appreciation to the Youth Policy Institute and their LA Promise Neighborhood initiative for enabling Create Now to launch the same program at Vaughan Middle School in Pacoima. Taught by Ron Raley, 20 children got to write a book called “Pieces of Us.” They loved it!
Edwin gushed, “This class is the highlight of the year! I’ve gotten so much joy. It brought out my inner potential. I’ve never been so confident in myself, or so committed to something in my life, not even video games!”
Allaleth remarked, “It was inspirational and motivational. I felt like I had finally found a place of my own.”
Marlene shared, “I loved this class because I wrote my heart out and I learned a lot. This is the most I have EVER written.”
As always, every child in Create Now’s workshops received a gift bag filled with lasting souvenirs to remind them of their successes.
