In addition to basic literacy skills, fundamental and important abilities are also rapidly diminishing; eye contact, verbal communication, concentration, and making meaningful connections with others are just some of the skills that are so grossly underdeveloped in young people today. We might go so far as to say they are endangered.

So, let's focus on how we can all help. Let's bring our youth around to a career and college-ready world and help prepare them for any path they pursue. Let's focus on how to inspire and ignite a passion in young people to discover and share their own stories. Let's focus on how to support young people in becoming effective communicators of their ideas; problem solvers who feel their contributions are valuable, and critical thinkers who apply their whole mind to every process. Let's do this through literacy.

Let's explore how writing or reading a story can open up a young person to a world of imagination and relevance, and build both character and confidence along the way.

In afterschool time we have the unique power to encourage creativity and present opportunities for youth to unleash the stories within as they pave their own paths to literacy. Below are 12 tips that will help support youth in becoming imaginative and innovative, whole mind thinkers:

• Identify literacy tools and programs that are staff friendly and easily implemented.
• Connect to youth by telling and sharing your own personal story.
• Share your own experiences with writing, reading books, magazines, comics, et cetera.
• Use relevant reading material(s) with which students may identify (cultural identification, current events, or ask them to bring in a story or book they love).
• Encourage youth to discover their own voice—let them know their story is valuable.
• Implement collaborative activities in which youth share ideas, cooperate, and problem solve.
• Encourage students to explore their creativity by taking risks in their writing, don't correct them. (Remember the REDLINE in your assignments? How did that make you feel?) Rather, provide constructive feedback—you can spell check later!
• Ask students to write by hand—engage them in a kinesthetic experience having them put pen to paper and take time to think "thoughtfully" and more intentionally.
• Ask them to come up with their own ideas and topics for writing a book or creating a project, where they must solve a problem and use research to interpret the complexities of the world in which they live.
• Engage them in a dialogue by asking them to explain the difference between social media language and writing for school, college, and work.
• Plan a trip to the library and assign students a strategic task that should be completed during the visit.
• After students complete a writing project of some kind, plan a presentation, and invite other students in the school as well as parents and leaders in your community! A culminating event will enable your students to express and hear their own words resonating with an audience. Let them feel the accomplishment of completion as they allow the positive responses from their listeners to elevate their self-esteem.

"We need to reignite kids' interest, we need to spark an enthusiasm for learning, we need to give them opportunities to become more empowered and take more of a responsibility for their own lives, we need to drive them toward the kinds of things that really make a difference for them not just while they're in school but throughout their lifetimes."
—Dr. Andi Fletcher, Expert in Education Programming & Policy and Co-Author of California's Landmark Bill Funding After School Programs with $550 Million Annually

Written by Julia Gabor, Director of Education, WRiTE BRAiN BOOKS

WRiTE BRAiN BOOKS are richly illustrated textless books that inspire students of all ages to write during Expanding Learning hours. Self-expression is ignited and inventive storytelling unfolds while students develop vitally important 21st Century skills. Our project-based and "disguised" learning programs (K-12) are keeping kids connected and inspired after school. Students' academic and personal confidence skyrocket as their collaboration and communication skills increase exponentially. In short, they fully invest in the experience of becoming published authors and get a published, hardcover book of their story to prove it!