This modern form of African American story telling will give our students the chance to hear the stories of others while sharing stories of their own. Outcomes include: Evaluate the impact of the author's decisions regarding: literary elements, word choice, point of view and style.; Synthesize ideas and make thematic connections among literary texts, public discourse, media and other disciplines.; Read from a variety of fiction, poetic, and nonfiction texts of increasing complexity. Students who express an interest in music will have the opportunity to create and perform their own compositions with Michael Monroe, a highly acclaimed musician. Outcomes include: Analyze, interpret, and evaluate a variety of musical style. Construct a response to the music using ideas and details generated by the group to compose a portion of a collaborative piece to be performed at the culminating event. These are opportunities students in our program would not otherwise be exposed to.Students in the core group will be evaluated informally on an ongoing basis during the daily workshops. The English department will imbed the workshop project into the class's existing final rubric assessment and the music project will include limited rubric for this project. Note: music students will receive arts units toward their arts graduation requirement (80 hourly units= a credit and students will receive between 12 and 20 units depending on how much time they invest in this project).