826 Valencia staff and guest instructors teach weird, whimsical, and wonderful writing workshops at our Writing Centers and in classrooms. Our workshops engage students who would benefit the most from free writing enrichment opportunities. This year, workshop students practiced world-building by creating their own Afro-fantasy roleplay games, used descriptive language in essays about the natural world, and learned about persuasive writing by writing restaurant reviews.
Our Tenderloin team continued to cultivate partnerships with community-based organizations, which brought their students to our Center to participate in our After-School Workshops. Our students worked on projects that connected them to their neighborhood and their favorite restaurants. Our collaboration with KQED brought to life a photojournalism project that gave students the opportunity to document their daily lives with disposable cameras! And they also wrote stellar food reviews that were published on Eater SF.
I really liked writing as a villain! I used to write so little but now I write even more. Next year, I want to write even more and do even better with juicy words.
— Student, Tenderloin Center After-School Workshops
Meanwhile, our Mission Center workshops team collaborated with external partners on introducing students to new forms of writing. A notable partnership was with the San Francisco Maritime Museum, which our students toured before writing melodic sea shanties and poems inspired by their collection. Students also recorded short narratives about objects of personal significance as part of our collaboration with Voice of Witness.
Our Mission Bay team offered After-School Workshops at Bret Harte Elementary and Malcolm X Academy this year. Their writing projects centered on art and creativity, including one where students imagined their dream haunted house, complete with detailed dioramas and spooky sales pitches!
I like working with you because it’s a vibe. I am proud of myself for writing a great professional story.
— Student, Mission Bay After-School Workshops
The Black Student Cohort is a group of Black-identifying students in grades 3–5. This year, we held the program at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, our newest partner school. Our team developed a gamified writing curriculum that centered on Black history, the African diaspora, and Black literary traditions. Students created and wrote backstories for original characters in the Afrofantasy genre, and they played their collaborative, story-based roleplay game throughout the year.
🎨 ✏️ Learn more about our workshops here.
Center photo of 826 Valencia student by Stefan Gruenwedel