Philadelphia Weekly

Emily, Olivia, Scarlet and Rania, four tiny pre-teen girls, gather around a small table in the back of Head House Books, located just off South Street in Society Hill. Sheets of blank paper lie scattered across the table in front of them. At the head of the table sits Erec Smith, a writer who works during the academic year as an assistant professor of English at Ursinus College. But for the next 90 minutes, Smith will coach his young students through an interactive workshop designed to teach persuasive writing skills to children. 


For this college-level instructor who is also a novelist, the role is a moderately unfamiliar one. And yet for Smith and a number of other local journalists and professional educators, volunteering as a part-time writing coach or homework tutor for area school kids seems to have become an almost overnight trend.


“So … right now,” says Smith to his new students in a reassuring voice, “I want you to write down something that you want your parents to let you do, or let you have. And then I want you to write down the reasons why you think you should have it. Do you understand? Alright: Ready, set … go!”


The newly developed Spells Writing Center is the organization responsible for this afternoon’s class. And although its name may not yet sound familiar, Spells’ all-volunteer staff has already hosted scores of free writing workshops this summer for Philly school kids in the K-12 demographic—everything from fantasy to screenwriting to poetry. Students from any region of the city or suburbs are welcome to attend the workshops, which are advertised both online (at phillyspells.org and on social networking sites), and via email blasts sent to area teachers and writers. And while Spells is currently holding classes at just about any public space that will have them, its board of directors is hoping to open a storefront location near South Street in the fall of 2010. 


The nonprofit writing center and tutoring lab is the brainchild of Jill Schiller, 33, a contract attorney who studied creative writing during her time at Ursinus College. Schiller says the idea to open a free writing school for kids in Philly came to her toward the end of 2007, during a conversation with a friend, Sarah Pollock. At the time, Pollock was volunteering at the Brooklyn annex of 826 Valencia, an outpost of the now-legendary writing center for kids that was co-founded in San Francisco by author and McSweeney’s editor Dave Eggers.


“Obviously there’s a great need for this because kids are just not as engaged as they should be in the schools. Maybe this is our own personal stab at education reform in the city: Trying to raise the graduation rate, and have some fun while we do it,” says Schiller. 


Schiller openly admits that the 826 Valencia model influenced her idea for Spells, although she does have plans to branch out in the future. 


“Once we have a space, we can actually start offering field trips,” she explains. “And we plan on serving as a resource for teachers; we’re going to get accredited [to offer them] continuing education credits.” 


In the meantime, Schiller and her impressively credentialed group of nearly two dozen advisors and close to 100 volunteers—including Dan Gross of the Philadelphia Daily News , who plans to offer a gossip writing workshop to high school students this fall—will continue hosting workshops at various book stores and rec centers around town. 


Back in 2008, Rachel Loeper was living in Bucks Country, and helping to develop an educational software program to improve kids’ writing skills. 


“I was kind of interested intellectually in what I was doing,” she explains. “But I wasn’t really satisfied with the amount of face time I was getting with other human beings.” 


In an effort to alleviate the tediousness of her work, Loeper began listening to podcasts and videos online. It wasn’t long before she stumbled upon a video of Dave Eggers accepting the 2008 TED Prize; his speech described the genesis of 826 Valencia, which has since grown to include seven tutoring labs across the country. 


“I specifically remember [playing the video] on my parent’s back porch,” 
Loeper recalls, “and just saying, ‘Isn’t this cool? Nobody’s doing it in Philadelphia! Can’t we do this?!’”


Though Loeper didn’t know it at the time, fellow Philadelphian and writer Tim Whitaker had been mulling over the very same idea for years. For more than a decade, Whitaker served as editor-in-chief of Philadelphia Weekly , but he began his career teaching high school. As a result, he was familiar with the city’s poor literacy skills and high dropout rates first hand. 


“It was disturbing to keep reading stories about problems with the public schools,” Whitaker says. So after reading a number of articles about Eggers and 826 Valencia, Whitaker traveled to the San Francisco center himself and attended a seminar for educators interested in replicating the model elsewhere. By this point, Whitaker and Loeper had already had a chance to meet, thanks to a colleague who realized the two educators—completely unaware of each other—were both working on essentially the same project.


Today, if you walk past the corner of Christian and South 15th streets in Philly’s Graduate Hospital neighborhood, you’re likely to spot groups of school children rushing in and out of Mighty Writers, the tutoring lab that Loeper and Whitaker unveiled to the public last month. 


On any given day of the week, students from all over South Philly and beyond gather inside to attend free writing workshops, many of them similar to those offered by Philly Spells. Recent classes have covered everything from slam poetry to the cultural influence of Michael Jackson. And although upwards of a dozen volunteers are already on board, scores more have signed up to teach classes in the fall, including the Inquirer ’s Annette John-Hall, and frequent PW contributor George Miller. 


And yet while Mighty Writers and Philly Spells will probably always be known as the city’s most professionally connected writing labs for kids, at least one other similar group has already begun to organize itself at Tree House Books in North Philly. And what’s more, rumors are eminent that a small-scale writing lab for kids might be coming soon to LaSalle University. 


After being asked to describe the main goal of her own tutoring lab, Mighty Writers, Loeper explains it this way: “Tim often says that we’re not necessarily raising kids to become journalists, because we’re not sure where journalism is going. But no matter what career paths they choose, those critical thinking skills and writing skills are going to be carried with them. And it’s going to help them along the way.” ■