iWRITE Non-Profit Organization

The iWRITE Literacy Organization aims to increase the interest, creativity and writing ability in students starting in grade school up into higher level education. As literacy levels and an overall interest in reading and writing continues to drop, our programs offer opportunities to increase an intrinsic interest in literacy, self-expression and overall confidence. Through programing that not only offers creative instruction but a rewards component, it is our goal to strengthen our youth's desire to read, write and communicate. This generation has been plagued by different forms of distractions, so as an organization we strive to make literacy important, cool and desirable.

iWRITE believes that in order to see lasting results, there must be some level of buy-in from the entire unit (Teacher, Parent, Student). In order to address an attitude of complacency, programming must get on the level of the targeted recipient. Educators must now be trained to think outside of the box and become a mirror of creativity in their classes in order to get buy in from their students. iWRITE offers a creative writing journal program, "i" The Guy in the form of a student and educator journal. The student feels like they are reading a comic book as they engage in writing exercises, and the teacher uses their manual to address each language arts concept on every page. For students struggling to read and write in English, there is a bilingual Spanish version to help with the transition. As the program grows, we will release a historical fiction version to bring literacy into the history classroom. We also offer a publishing contest program that is open to 3rd-12th graders.

Each year we will add more schools and eventually full districts into our writing journal curriculum. Through partnering with larger organizations with wider volunteer platforms we will be able to get more writing journals into the hands of students who need a new approach to literacy. As we add training into our program for teachers and writing volunteers, we will be able to place creativity and self-expression above teaching to a test. As we offer more opportunities for students to shine and increase their confidence through the written word, they will be the link to help influence their peers. Our organization was founded on the notion "by kids for kids" and we have branded ourselves as a place for kids to connect to something important.

Since 2009 the vision has been carefully crafted and planned out. We used all of our time to create a solid publishing program to reach students who had a creative passion. Once that program was strong, we expanded in 2016 to embrace an entire group of students who didn't think they had anything to share, an entire population of students who never had a parent or teacher encourage them to be creative. Without proper creative writing training, it is difficult for many adults to teach and encourage this form of self-expression, neglecting the opportunity for young developing minds to form an extended sense of awareness. We have built a journaling program based of off of character development and creativity. We have a teacher edition to accompany that journal in line with the 3rd grade TEKS language arts concepts. Where we lack the resources falls into the category of training and staff development to develop relationships with the administration in order to embrace the shifting mindset.