August, 2026
A Reflection on Where We’ve Been
This year marks 10 years of Reader/Writer as a nonprofit organization, and over these years we’ve had to bend and shift to accommodate changes in our schools and culture. We began mostly as an organization to serve our most challenged student population in the urban area--kids who were at risk of future adjudication, of not graduating high school and who experienced ongoing poverty and the resultant traumas such as family instability. Those were rewarding years and ones that lifted many adolescents up, as well helped teachers handle the load of writing their kids needed to do.
Covid brought with it a shift in schools (and culture) and, eventually, in who we serve. Students no longer came to school—a trend which in low-income areas and schools still continues. Teachers were overwhelmed with both online and in-class learning and teaching, and after Covid, with students who came back to school two years or more behind academically, socially/emotionally….and angry and fearful. As a result, schools that did continue offering Reader/Writer to their students could not guarantee consistent writing. Students just weren’t ready.
Not ready to write? That was and is sad to me. No amount of cajoling, incentives and good will on the part of teachers, readers or me could make students come to school, sit down, slow down and play with words to express themselves. It simply wasn’t a priority at all. Survival was.
And still is for many. For those, we grieve, but we’ve come to accept that Reader/Writer is not, at least for the time being, for those we most wished at first to serve.
Now, after a bit of shuffling of teachers and school sites, Reader/Writer has found an optimal place. Today we work with two schools: Justice Page Middle School and Southwest High School, both Minneapolis Public Schools. Between the two, 150 readers consistently read and respond to about 3200 essays each year. At Justice Page, we work with Angel Dwyer’s 7th and 8th grade Special Education students; at Southwest, we read for Ryan VanThorre’s 190 9th graders. In their own ways, students of both teachers show great growth in writing skills, confidence and stamina after a year of being paired with readers.
Why such growth of almost all students compared to the lack thereof in other schools we’ve worked at? #1 is attendance. Students in the schools we work with show up. They build relationships with their teacher and with their reader. They trust them, in time, and become open to learn and to express themselves in writing. Many of our students have the huge advantage of a stable family income and situation. Most have the ‘luxury’ of consistent food, housing and supportive people in their lives. These assets are a game-changer and are so different from those of students from a different part of town.
Yet they all have the same needs—not just physical but social-emotional as well. No matter the background, each adolescent has struggles and challenges. Each needs acceptance….just the way they are. Each needs a neutral listener whose interest in them is genuine, kind and consistent. Each needs to be challenged, encouraged and guided in their thinking as they make choices as a young person that have huge ramifications in their lives.
This year, Reader/Writer continues to do this for our student participants. Whomever they are, wherever they come from, it they write, our volunteers will read and respond, and, for many, offer a lifeline of hope.