YourWords STL

Red Roses Too

Feature Blog Post by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
The villain, a shiny-headed Mr. Windex, schemes against the Yoda-esque warlock, armed with Bluetooth enabled light sabers.  Set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a warrior-hero tries to save what is left of the population.  And John Bond, son of James

Read More

And what sort of world do you want to live in?

Feature Blog Post by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
Quiz time. Name the superhero associated with each quote below.
Part I: No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.
Did you know that the CDC has published a graphic novella about a zombie apocalypse?

Read More

Suzi Wan and the Language Instinct

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
Last week at Marygrove, our classroom included two students who were black, two who were white, and one who was half white and half black.  Two of the tutors were white. I am Asian. The staff person from Marygrove, who assists

Read More

STEM to Sestina and Back Again

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
A game of name that horror movie soundtrack, a reading of “The Buffy Sestina,” by Jason Schneiderman, and “The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People” by David Ferry, a rainy autumn afternoon, and some pattern detecting put us in

Read More

Zombies, Metallica, Armantrout, and Collier

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
The students started by listening to Metallica, turned-up on a speaker, something I’ve never done in a classroom, or in my own home.  However, a couple students mentioned their appreciation of heavy metal, so I decided to learn more about the

Read More

Big Fat Liars

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
We began with a game of truth or fiction, in which the students and tutors wrote down one true and two false statements about oneself.  We then read the statements aloud and deciphered, as a class, which statements were true.  Everyone

Read More

When Students Don’t Want to Be Taught

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
This week, I was able to arrive early to Marygrove’s 44-acre campus, which is surrounded by wooded hills, and overlooks the Missouri River. The sky was blue, a few kids were playing basketball, and I had a fleeting thought of holding that

Read More

Meditation on Chocolate

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
We have somewhat of a tutor drought right now. However, we have already bandaged skinned knees, dusted despondency off of our shoulders, and moved on.  After speaking to more experienced people in similar fields, like Sandy Taubenheim, a co-founder of Kaleidoscope Network, Maria

Read More

Right Versus Left

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
This week’s session at Marygrove started with the students arriving early.  “Are we going to be doing that rap stuff again?” one teenage boy asked me, while raising his hand.  He was taller than me and at least twice my girth.

Read More

Sept. 16th

Feature Blog by Program Director, Anna Ojascastro Guzon
 
Yesterday afternoon, the YourWords tutors and the Marygrove students finally had the opportunity to meet at our first tutoring session.  We started with homework help, then dove into the writing assignment.  We examined the universal theme of loss in Jay-Z’s “Glory,”

Read More