2nd Workshop with Youth P.A.C.

On March 19, 2010 the 2nd Workshop of Youth P.A.C. was held at Pillsbury House. A hip-hop poetry/spoken word teaching artist Anton came and led a workshop with the youth inspiring them to write creatively about their community and neighborhood. Anton works within schools and a variety of arts organizations around the Twin Cities, and encourages youth to write creatively about their lives.

The workshop began with a few community-building exercises.

Afterwards Anton asked them to write down five places in their neighborhood that were important to them. After this, the youth were asked to pick on of those places and to describe five smells which they experience in that place. Out of the five smells they were asked to pick one, and then to write down five sounds which personified and described that smell.

Then the youth were asked to "grafitti" their poem on a large piece of white paper.

They were asked to write their chosen place in the neighborhood down on the paper, and then to describe that place through not only writing down the words, but working to write the words down in a style that described the feeling, texture and emotion of the word.

The "grafitti" poem resulted in a collaboratively created image that represented the community the youth experience everyday.

In reflection the youth were asked to interview each other about they new skills they had learned within the workshop, and what they learned about each other. They presented their interviews by telling about the other person they had interviewed. Some of the youth's answers were;

"learned how to draw grafitti"

"learned about new people"

" I learned that a lot of people love their homes"

"learned about poetry"