EXPANDED PROGRAMMING AT WESTLAKE MIDDLE SCHOOL!
Chapter 510 is offering a creative writing, bookmaking, and publishing course for up to 30 students at Westlake Middle School (Oakland) this school year. This will be Chapter 510’s most intensive offering ever!
Students are learning about various forms of writing, bookmaking, letterpress printing, and screen printing with the goal of writing their own stories that will be published into a perfect bound and illustrated anthology by the end of the year.
Chapter 510 lead teaching artist Duane Horton is partnering with the Westlake English Language Arts Coach Jen Joyce and book artist Anna Kingsley to co-create this elective, which includes scholars who each live in a household where English is not the primary language. Each scholar is nearing fluency in English, and preparing to take a State mandated exam to become “reclassified” as English Language Proficient (ELP). Research shows that students who are reclassified as ELP have better academic outcomes over time, partly because the school system doesn’t then exclude them from enrolling in increasingly demanding courses, including Advanced Placement classes once they reach high school.
Our Westlake program supported by the Morris Stulstaft Foundation, Crescent Porter Hale Foundation, and an Art for Oakland Kids’ Landis Grant.
