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Word Journeys

What is Word Journeys?

Since 2001, high school and elementary students from the Amphitheater Public Schools have met afterschool at the Woods Memorial Branch Library as a part of the Word Journeys program. They have fun with words and expressive arts, and teen mentors build leadership skills while working with elementary students in workshops facilitated by author Marge Pellegrino. This year's (2007-08) theme was Friendship Across Cultures. Previous themes included Coexistence, Story and Drama, and Art as a Springboard.

Each workshop includes a story, a writing springboard and time for sharing, as well as time for mentors and mentees to explore the library via books and targeted activities. Teen mentors plan and setup the weekly workshops, encourage the younger students, write in their journals and reflect upon the week's experiences.

Participants take several field trips, including to the University of Arizona campus, the University of Arizona's School of Theatre Arts, and the Arizona State Museum. As the semester ends, students exhibit their work at a public reading and display.

Word Journeys is a unique artistic and literary after-school program for underserved youth in a racially diverse and socio-ecomonically challenged Tucson neighborhood. Ms. Pellegrino has collaborated with The Hopi Foundation and IRC to reach out to include some of the neighborhood's newest refugee members.

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Word Journeys' Awards

Word Journeys has received many honors and public recognition. It won the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities 2008 Coming Up Taller award, presented by the First Lady Laura Bush in Washington, D.C., and included a $10,000 prize. Word Journeys also was a semifinalist in 2007.

It was honored with a display at the U.S. Department of Justice's Juvenile Justice Office in Washington, D.C., and was honored in collaboration with Columbia University Teaching College's Comic Book Project.

Read more about Word Journeys in the Tucson Citizen and Arizona Daily Star.

View photos of Word Journeys 2008 on Flickr.

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What are the goals of Word Journeys?

Word Journeys has several goals. They include:

• Provide job skills to mentors
• Model and encourage community service
• Bring families, children and teens into the library for programming and services
• Promote literacy
• Celebrate life-long learning

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How is Word Journeys funded?

For the 2007-2008 school year, Marge Pellegrino's programming and administrative fees were paid with grants from the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Pima County Public Library's Youth Services staff supervise the program, provide the workshop's primary meeting place, seek out funding, obtain writing and art supplies for the workshops, and handle the administrative tasks.

Other partnering organizations and funders have included:

• The Friends of the Pima County Public Library
• YMCA of Tucson
• Arizona Commission on the Arts
• The National Endowment for the Arts
• The American Library Association
• The Arizona Humanities Council
• The Tucson-Pima Arts Council
• Community Extension Programs, Inc.
• AMPHI High School
• The Hopi Foundation's Owl and Panther Project
• Prince Elementary Newcomer Intervention Program
• Tucson City Council, Ward III

Who is eligible to participate in Word Journeys?

Teachers from Amphitheater Public Schools help recruit Word Journeys participants from elementary schools and its three high schools.

The elementary students come from Community Extension Program's afterschool projects in one of the Amphitheater School District's elementary schools. This year the project is working with Holoway.

What are Word Journeys workshops like?

 

The 2010-2011 theme is Nature and Poetry. Previous themes have included Friendship Across Cultures, Coexistence, Story and Drama, and Art as a Springboard.

Participants will explore Pima Canyon three times this year, to formulate questions about and notice changes in their piece of the trail. We'll also visit the University of Arizona's Poetry Center. In the past we've visited the University of Arizona's School of Theatre Arts, Arizona State Museum, Sweetwater Wetlands and DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun. As the semester ends, students exhibit their work at a public reading and display.

Field trips last year included:

• Arizona State Museum
• DeGrazia Gallery of the Sun
• Amphitheater High School Band
• Sweetwater Wetlands
• UA School of Theater Arts' set of "Taming of the Shrew"
• Tucson Village Farm

Teen mentors encourage the younger students, write in their journals and process the week's experiences as a group.

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About Marge Pellegrino

Author Marge Pellegrino has published poetry, essays, nonfiction articles and four children's books, Too Nice, My Grandma's the Mayor, and I Don't Have an Uncle Phil Anymore. On the artist roster of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, she facilitates writing workshops in Pima County and throughout Arizona.

Marge’s new book Journey of Dreams won the Libraries Ltd 2009 Judy Goddard Award for young adult literature in December at a luncheon at the Arizona Library Association’s conference, and earned a starred review in Kirkus.

Journey of Dreams is also included in:

• Association of Booksellers for Children's 2009 “ABC Best Books for Children” catalog
• Kirkus Magazine’s “Best Books of 2009″
• Pima County Public Library's Southwest Books of the Year 2009
• Smithsonian Magazine's Notable Books for Children 2009
• CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) Choices 2010 [pdf]
• United States Board on Books for Young People's (USBBY) 2010 Outstanding International Book list [pdf]