More than 50 teenagers have received one-to-one support and tailored feedback in a weekend workshop by the Writing Wrongs Schools Programme. The second instalment of this year’s programme, teamed up participants, aged 16-17, with professional writers for support to hone their storytelling skills.

Students from across the Midlands and beyond were invited to join an online group workshop in ‘Building Your Story’, using examples of articles written by professional journalists alongside stories crafted by Warwick University students on the Writing Human Rights module.

Investigative journalist Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi (pictured at a previous Writing Wrongs workshop) guided the class through three writing exercises with the chance to share their excerpts.

The session gave participants confidence in crafting the key elements of a story, whether fiction or non-fiction, examining how other writers construct their articles. The students considered the use of quotes in supporting a story and looked at writing techniques used to create imagery.

Before and after the workshop, a team of tutors, consisting of professional journalists, authors, and postgraduates from the Warwick Writing Programme, held one-to-one sessions with each participant, exploring their story ideas and giving advice on their plan and opening paragraphs.

Alex Breeze, Warwick Law in the Community Co-ordinator, said

This year we have had the largest number of young people take part in the Writing Wrongs School Programme and it has been fantastic to see their passion for social justice and unbridled creativity. We wouldn’t be able to run Writing Wrongs without the dedication of our amazing tutors, student ambassadors and our programme lead Mary Griffin, Warwick School of Law Teaching Fellow and editor of Lacuna magazine. We have had story ideas that cover issues as diverse as the Ukraine war, LGBTQ+ stereotyping and intergenerational differences in British-Asian communities. The final pieces are sure to be engaging and insightful and the whole team are looking forward to reading them.’

Now, the students have just over a month to continue their research and writing before submitting a first draft of their story ahead of the third workshop in April. For that final session, they’ll be back on campus for more in-person workshops on editing their stories as well as more one-to-one feedback sessions from the tutoring team.

Find out more

• Learn more about the Writing Wrongs Schools Programme
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