To Write Or Not To Write - @CWPFairfield and the 1st Shakespeare Young Adult Literacy Lab

We're entering the 5th, and last week with youth in our summer programs (with only one more week left for another teacher institute). This week, we're debuting To Write Or Not To Write, a literacy lab for Shakespeare-loving youth. It was an experiment, but we were delighted to see that several young people signed up.

Originally planned alongside a collaboration with the Folger's Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, the intent was to have young people to work with and to explore Elizabethan language and storylines with. Sadly, the teacher institute didn't take off as planned, but that's okay, because we still have the traditional teacher institute on campus. I'm delighted, too, to have Michael LoMonico, Fairfield University graduate and Shakespeare teacher extraordinaire coming by to do two days of workshops.

In addition, I'm fortunate to have hired Shakespeare scholar, Dr. Shannon Kelly and Shakespeare actress, Kara Peters, to help run the weeklong lab. They've chosen Macbeth and Midsummer's Night Dream to be their go-to plays and our mission is to inspire writing from the writing of Mr. William Shakespeare. We imagine the week will get poetic and theatrical rather quick.

We'll continue with Ubuntu Academy this week after saying goodbye to college essayists and the political writers in Project Citizen.

It's hard to believe the countdown with kids is on its way. The campus will definitely miss their vivacious energy.

In the mean time, we have some feathered pens that need to get to work.