Write Away! prepares students for work

Writing is life! Whether you get excited by the idea of writing, or not so much, you can’t get through life without it – at least not successfully. The Write Away! Young Adult Literature Project offers engaging digital content to support online English classes, available to all secondary schools via the Ministry of Education’s School Learning Management System.

Produced by the Bocas Lit Fest and sponsored by The Scotiabank Foundation, the project is designed to keep students and teachers motivated and engaged in reading, writing, and online learning.

This year, Write Away! focuses on non-fiction writing, preparing students for real life and work. How do you write a business proposal or report? How do you become a great feature, news, commercial or technical writer or editor? What are the tools for succeeding as a professional creative practitioner?

The project includes an engaging, fun five-part video series. Throughout the series, non-fiction practitioners of different genres (such as journalism, advertising, academia, comedy, music etc) will give snippets of expert knowledge. The videos will be accompanied by a workbook featuring key exercises, tips, and lesson notes. This package will be available on demand for all Caribbean secondary school teachers and students.

There will also be ten free professional non-fiction writing training workshops conducted by faculty at COSTAATT at the beginning of the school year, to hone students; professional writing skills.

The project will culminate in internships for students at media houses, advertising and marketing companies, and other sectors using non-fiction writing.

On the programme entering its third year, Roxane De Freitas, chairperson, Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Foundation said, “Young people are the key to our economic stability and empowered communities. We’re aiming to help secondary school students develop a love and habit of reading and refine their creative writing and critical language skills.”

De Freitas expressed that the foundation are pleased that this year students will be exposed to in person workshops on non-fiction writing such as writing for social media, copywriting, technical writing, editing. She said, “We look forward to working with the Bocas Lit Fest team again this year to expose young people to the skills of creative writing and the opportunities this will foster – for their education and economic resilience .”

Last year, the Write Away! Young Adult Literature Project focused on reading and writing poetry. The 2022 edition included a nine-part video workshop series available on demand for all Caribbean secondary school teachers and students, as well as free interactive online workshops throughout the school year for budding young poets. Participants were invited to submit their poetry.

In the 2020–2021 academic year, Write Away! looked in-depth at reading and writing fiction. The project included a virtual creative writing workshop series, as well as a teacher’s guide and a digital booklet of excerpts from award-winning Caribbean YA books, giving students access to exciting, culturally relevant books of all genres. Led by the award-winning author Lisa Allen-Agostini, the fiction workshops broke down the essentials of creative writing, and covered everything from character building to planning your plot.

Write Away! fiction and poetry material from the past two years is still available via the Ministry of Education’s SLMS. Stay tuned to hear when registration for this year’s non-fiction writing programme begins.

For more information on Write Away! Visit https://www.bocaslitfest.com/ or follow @bocaslitfest on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter