On Dec. 1, Aragon’s Creative Writing class went to the Shop at Flywheel Press, a community art and design center dedicated to sharing creative fine arts in downtown San Mateo, to share their personal work to a public audience.
One of the main criteria in the Creative Writing class is performing a public reading. Unlike most school assignments, this project is completed outside of school. Creative Writing teacher Genevieve Thurtle stresses the importance of having this project at the Shop at Flywheel Press. She says, “[Flywheel] is a really cool independently owned art studio, and it’s one of the few in San Mateo, so I wanted to give the students an exposure to that kind of venue, because we have very few of them in San Mateo. Typically, you would have to go up to San Francisco or to Oakland to find art studios like this. It’s a nice introduction to that world that exists here in our community. The setting is outside of the classroom, so it feels like it makes their writing feel more real.”
Because Creative Writing explores the many facets of a student’s imaginations, the prompt for the public reading is flexible to fit the student’s interests. Some students hope to convey a powerful message to the audience by sharing their personal story. Junior Juliet Bost dedicated her poem to her birth father, who she wishes she could meet since she had been given up for adoption. She says, “It’s a piece called ‘To My Birth Father.’ It’s about what it would be like living with him if he had not put me up for adoption. Just as a kid, I would wonder what life would be like if I had not been given up for adoption, and [the poem] is me ruminating over the reasons why someone with a child would put that child for adoption, especially in China [with issues related to their one child policy].”
Bost hopes that the public reading allows her to spread her message on the meaning of adoption. She says, “I hope to make people feel more [empathy for] situations that they might have heard of, such as their friends who are adopted. No one really thinks about the other side, like what it would have been like if you were to give up your child and what it feels like living without your child for the rest of your life, so I hope it lets people see the other side of adoption.”
Some students presented their original piece on something that interests them. Junior Lily Zhou explains her short story piece about the meaning of human connection, saying “I [read] an excerpt from a short story entitled “Skin.” This piece is about a narcissistic mothers and her child. My piece explores a lot about intimacy and the connection between different people. I have been exploring a lot about connections between people, and specifically I used a lot of images. The poet Ocean Vuong [inspires me], and I really love his poetry; he also expresses a lot about human connections.”
Although students may be shy to speak about their original piece in public, performing a public reading helps cto effectively put through their ideas, thoughts and messages across to the readers. Senior Dina Zheng explains the difference between having people read their original work and presenting the piece to the readers. She says, “If people just read it, I think they wouldn’t be able to hear my personal voice reading it. They will have a different perspective if they just read it black-and-white on paper, and if they hear me personally saying it, it feels more direct and also a lot more personal, so hopefully it’ll have more impact on people.”
The open mic allowed students to express themselves and provided a unique learning experience for the class.
