Student Writers Design Center to Nurture Their Passion
Students at Orange High School share their work on a “Wall of Great Writing” located within the newly created Writing Center.
"Within their classes, students focus on academic writing. Here, we fill their creative spirit."
-Kathleen Frazier, Gifted Education Specialist, Orange City Schools
A group of like-minded students who love to write followed the Design Thinking Process to create a multi-dimensional Writing Center at Orange High School. Over seven months, the teens transformed "a very bland conference room with a bunch of grey chairs" into a calm, inviting space that nurtures creativity, fosters writing opportunities, supports struggling writers, and invites guest authors to share their love for the craft.
The idea for the Center sprang from the young writers' yearning for more creative writing experiences both in and outside the classroom.
"We had a lot of writing-related opportunities in middle school, such as Power of the Pen and other local competitions, but when we came to the high school, those didn't exist. There were no writing clubs; there were no extracurricular writing activities; there was nowhere to go to for writing help. There was a math lab, but there was not an equivalent lab for writing,” explains Natalie Borsch, who graduated in 2023 but was beginning the tenth grade when this project began to take shape. “There was an imbalance,” she continues, “and it seemed a little unfair."
Natalie Borsch displays one of the posters the Leadership Team designed to document how they implemented the Design Thinking Process to create the Writing Center. The students shared that work at the International Future Problem Solving Conference in June 2022. The team was awarded third place among applicants worldwide for solving a problem within their school community.
Natalie and a handful of her peers took it upon themselves to correct that imbalance. They established a Leadership Team to interview students, teachers, and administrators to determine if they, too, recognized an unmet need within the school community. They discovered a school-wide interest in creating a center that would place a greater emphasis on the writing process and provide opportunities for writing enrichment. Activities would support both students and teachers.
"We started by creating Google forms to discover what people would like to see in a writing space," explains Ethan Vincent, a member of the original Student Leadership team. "From there, it just took a lot of brainstorming, planning, and coordination to make it happen."
Due to Covid, the Leadership Team initially met weekly on Zoom. They established an action plan, set goals, and divided the tasks among the group. Following the Design Thinking Process, they defined the problem, discussed challenges, brainstormed solutions, developed Vision Boards, designed prototypes, and presented their ideas to administrators. After gaining the principal’s support, they resigned a nondescript conference room in the school media center into a more relaxing space suitable for hosting writing-focused activities. The original plan was implemented with funds from the Orange Foundation and the PTA.
Members of the Center’s Writing Club meet weekly after school where they respond to a variety of writing prompts, which are created by the Student Leaders, and then share what they’ve written with each other.
"We made this room ourselves,” Natalie remarks, while proudly glancing around the serene surroundings that is now home to the new OHS Writing Center.
“It used to be very bland; it just looked draining,” she adds. “So we researched the best lighting and paint colors that would nurture creativity. We ordered all the furniture, resources, and reference materials. The entire environment changed."
"I love the creative problem-solving process," remarks Kathleen Frazier, the gifted education specialist at Orange City Schools, who collaborated with the Leadership Team as they worked to create the Center. "I love watching the kids go through the process and learn it, knowing that they will be able to apply it again and again during their lives – whether in their occupations or their personal experiences. It just gives me energy.”
In 2022, Ms. Frazier received a Grant-to-Educators from the Jennings Foundation to sustain the program and take it to the next level. "This is so much bigger than just a club," Natalie explains. The Writing Center now sponsors Author Talks; offers peer editing; designs workshops and competitions; provides professional development sessions focused on writing within the curriculum; creates service-learning projects; offers self-publishing opportunities; and hosts an after-school writing club that nurtures creative expression. Grant funds helped to further develop these programs, create an awareness of all the Writing Center offers, and provide opportunities for collaboration with teachers, students, and the community.
Ishan Bhatt says the Writing Center offers ”the perfect environment for creativity. It's a very calming space. I always feel relaxed here."
Students who have been deeply involved with the Writing Center took time recently to share what they love most about it:
"I've enjoyed the guest authors who share their stories and help us develop our writing. I think it's beneficial to get different perspectives on ways to write.”
"Academic writing is very cut and dry, and you can't use your creativity. But whenever I am here, I just let everything loose and write.”
"I like working with others on different forms of creative writing in the writing club. We've written short stories, haikus, plays, international poetry, and fantasy. It forces us to write in different ways than we would normally, and that's been really cool."
"I like getting feedback on my writing from friends. It makes me a better writer."
"It's not always just about the writing. We've made our own little community here. I like being able to come together, and basically just have fun, with a group of people who like to write."
Members of the 2022-23 OHSWC: (Back Row) Ethan Vincent and Ishan Bhatt; (Front Row) Tatev Sargsyan, Kathleen Frazier, and Sophie Long.
Kathleen Frazier is a veteran educator who has presented at numerous state, national, and world conferences on topics including creativity, creative problem-solving, service-learning, and integrating the arts into the classroom curriculum.
"There needs to be support for kids to be creative in schools," comments Ms. Frazier when determining what is most important to communicate about the Writing Center. "The top skills Fortune 500 companies look for in future employees are creative problem-solving, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration. We do all of that here."
"Whenever I have an opportunity for a creative outlet on a project, I work harder on it, because I enjoy it more," interjects Ethan. "That's what we're trying to emulate here."
The Writing Center is now entrenched within Orange High School and students continue to brainstorm ways to incorporate its mission into their school experience, both in and out of the classroom. While the founding members have graduated, each year new students and teachers participate in Center initiatives, which will continue to grow and add positive change to the entire school community.
As for the students’ advice for peers who might want to fill an unmet need within their schools: "Making a space like this is very possible," Ethan comments. "You just have to put some elbow grease into it, and make it happen."