Workshop Guidelines and Goals:

1. The workshops help young women and female identified youth find their voices and offer opportunities to express themselves in public. Grrls will be exposed to this and other kinds of literary activism.

2. Participants identify and become familiar with social issues important to them.

3. They will explore their own views on these issues through creative writing and presenting a public "action."

4. The workshop empowers Grrls to speak up instead of staying silent.

5. Instructors foster a collaborative and safe learning environment for exploring sensitive issues.

6. By making their work public, the Grrls positively effect how people view them and, in the process, overturn negative stereotypes about young females and women.

7. The participants learn that their words make an impact on the public. Cultivating a sense of efficacy cultivates leadership.

8. Adult facilitators lead discussions, select works of literature/art/media to discuss, teach creative writing/media literacy fundamentals, and facilitate creative explorations. Participants investigate issues and ways of presenting their work.

9. Workshop projects and are language-driven, though may incorporate other media and art forms.

10. Actions are the Grrls' original writing and not those of others.

11. The workshop helps the Grrls develop a powerful connection between a personal voice (what is meaningful to them) and a public voice (how to impact others).

12. Grrls learn to respectfully and constructively give and receive feedback, and to revise their work.

13. Grrls are asked to take more risks as the workshop progresses, to build confidence at each stage. Participants move from writing & reading alone, reading & writing with peers, reading & presenting in front of an invited audience and people they do not know.

 

All young women and female identified youth ages 14 to 20 are eligible to participate. For more information, to make an Arizona tax credit donation, to enroll or sponsor your favorite Grrl, contact Nhu Tien Lu at grrls@korepress.org or call 520-327-2127.