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Speaking
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Santa Barbara Independent Communication Breakthrough 
On Monday, October 29, incarcerated boys (18 and younger) at Los Prietos\Tri-Counties Boot Camp displayed their recently acquired skills and read aloud in a spoken-word performance in front of their peers: the culmination of the Word Up! reading program offered by Speaking of Stories. Though most boys chose from the Word Up! curriculum, one boy read an anonymous poem from a book that his mother had sent him a few weeks earlier that had personal meaning, "Man in the Glass." Another boy delivered a stunning rendition of Pablo Neruda’s "Tonight I Can Write," placing himself in the author’s shoes and conveying the romantic tone of the poem: "Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her." Speaking of Stories founder Karin delaPeña developed Word Up! three years ago, and it has since been implemented in Santa Barbara’s Juvenile Probation system at Los Prietos/Tri-Counties Boot Camp, El Puente School, Villa Esperanza, and New Vistas. The eight-week program, an innovative language and reading skills workshop, was designed to help kids gain knowledge of basic communication skills, as well as an appreciation for contemporary literature. The program not only stresses teaching the kids how to read, but also understanding the words in the context of the story or poem. The students achieve this primarily by reading out loud, which teaches the other students to listen and identify which words are being naturally accented. This helps them to communicate more clearly, and gives them the ability to express themselves. "There are almost no freedoms here for these kids; we are providing them with the ability to explore the freedom of expression," explained Speaking of Stories instructor Bohdan Porendowsky. Following the reading, the audience of peers commented that they felt a certain connection to many of the spoken-word pieces—a testament that the performers had learned how to use their communication skills to capture the imagination of other teenage boys. Return to Reviews and Articles or
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