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Young Writers Conference, 2009

Over a period of three days, students and teachers from six St. Paul Schools—Hazel Park Middle School Academy, Ramsey Junior High School, Washington Technology Magnet, Linwood Monroe Arts Plus, Murray Junior High, and Highland Park Junior High School—viewed, learned, and wrote about the exhibit Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam.

To further explore the theme of identity for this year’s event, photographer Wing Young Huie shared some of his photos and spoke about how he tries to capture the ideas of individual and community identity within a photo. In addition, writer Kao Kalia Yang talked about the power of memory and writing to find one’s identity.

The students worked in writing groups led by graduate students in education and other university staff volunteers.  In addition to writing about identity, students also had the opportunity to share images and artifacts that they felt represented their identity in ways that words could not.

Here is video taken at the 2009 Young Writers' Conference: