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Words37
by Charles Myers

Gage Park Academy has a lot of talent and I don't just mean athletics. I talking about some of the apprentices in Words 37 program. They have rappers, poets, storytellers, and even singers in the program. Words37 help students with these talents a chance to express and perfect them.

For example, Mark Taylor was a quiet guy who loved to write lyrics but he was scared rap his lyrics in front of a crowd. But by the end of the program, we couldn't get him to stop rapping.

Even though Gage Park Academy's Words 37 has talent, the main purpose of the program is to teach the students the skill of storytelling. When I first enrolled in Words 37 in the fall I thought that storytelling was reading books of aloud. Boy, was I wrong. There's more to storytelling than reading. In fact, Ms. Oyen and Ms. Sunshine teach you to tell the story in your own words. They also get you to use your imagination to make up and tell stories. They have this one exercise in which they start a story off, then they call on different students to make up the rest.

Another skill Ms. Oyen and Ms. Sunshine teach is telling stories with enthusiasm. Telling a story with enthusiasm means using different voices when different characters in the story come up. In order to read with enthusiasm you must also read in a happy voice when the mood of the story is happy and read in sad or angry voice when the mood of the story is sad or angry.

The thing I really liked about Words 37 was the open mic sessions. These daily sessions gave students with talents a chance to display them. Students, like Mark Taylor, Lakiesha Barren, and Tia Turner, rap, recite poems or tell stories during open mic.

Along with the talent and skills the instructors of Words 37 teach you also need real world experience to be a successful storyteller. That's why they go to the park or the library once a week to tell stories to little children. You'll know if you're doing a good job storytelling by reactions of the kids. By the end of this apprenticeship the student should know how to make a story more interesting and, they should know how to perform in front of people. I think Word 37 is a good program for you if you are creative but you need help presenting your ideas to a crowd. If you are interested in participating in Word 37 you should go to www.afterschoolmatters.org, fill out an application and summit it.

 
Artwork by:
Sade Buford