Boys & Girls Clubs’ Kids Having A ‘Creative’ Summer

Screenwriting, poetry, public speaking, news reporting, autobiography and fables are all part of the curriculum for many of the kids at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pasadena this summer.

Summer Creative Writing classes are underway at the Clubs’ Mackenzie-Scott Branch and the Orange Grove Gardens Learning Center, both in Northwest Pasadena.

The classes are the brainchild of Kelly Beach, the Clubs’ Education Director, and Mayra Beltran, Branch Director at the Orange Grove Gardens site.

During the summer-long classes, students will write autobiographical stories of their backgrounds. In the second class, boys and girls will write their own tall-tales or fables.

In the third class, students get to write short stories illustrate them and then read them aloud to children at the Clubs’ preschool, the Scott Child Development Center

One of the highlights of the class will no doubt be the Screenwriting unit. The youth get to write a short play or film script. Ms. Beach has arranged for a professional screenwriter to come to the Clubs to give the kids an insight into screenwriting.

Then they take a crack at becoming reporters — for either newspaper, radio or television. Students will write about events occurring at the Clubs and write about it as professional journalists might.

Next, the kids will become poets as they learn to write couplets, quatrains, haiku, sonnets and free verse.

Finally, the boys and girls will get experience as public speakers when they end their summer of creativity by giving either a persuasive or “how to” speech.

For more information, call (626) 798-3925 or visit www.bgcpasadena.org.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Pasadena, 3230 East Del Mar Blvd., Pasadena.