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Early childhood / childhood education major Amanda Averill ’18 loves writing! As one of five SUNY Potsdam student mentors in the “Write Spot” Writing Club, she has been a source of guidance for middle and high school students working on their writing skills at SUNY Potsdam’s Rebecca V. Sheard Literacy Center.

“I love seeing the children get excited about writing and having all of these ideas. It’s really nice because independent thinking sometimes seems like a lost art, especially in our society, so it’s just nice to see them expressing who they are through their writing,” Averill said.

The “Write Spot” program started in 2011, with the goal of giving middle and high school students an opportunity to write about any topic that they choose under the guidance of SUNY Potsdam student mentors. This semester, 22 students from the Potsdam, Norwood-Norfolk and Colton-Pierrepont central school districts have been traveling to SUNY Potsdam to work on everything from science fiction stories to history reports.

Already a hub of activity, the Sheard Literacy Center turns into a writers’ oasis every Wednesday during the five-week-long program, giving the young authors a chance to flex their creative muscles. “It’s really nice to see all the ideas that they have and expose them to the wonderful world of writing and see where their minds and creativity can take them,” Averill said.

For the past five years, Cindy Wells, a full-time lecturer at SUNY Potsdam, has been supervising the “Write Spot” program. “I love working with middle and high school kids. I’ve always had a passion for writing myself, and so to watch them be engaged in the whole writing process is totally enjoyable,” she said.

Wells said that the donors for the program, Claire Freedman Koshar ’56 and Martin Koshar, recognized that writing opportunities are prompted and more structured at the middle and high school level. She said that the donors wanted to create a space where students could write freely without being constrained by anything but their imagination. “They really created the parameters under which the program operates. It was their idea to have this creative writing space and so that really drives how we set it up each semester,” Wells said.

Fresia Martinez ’17 & ’19, who is working on her master of science in teaching degree in adolescent education, has found the mentorship opportunities to be really rewarding. She has been working with Emma French, a tenth grader at Potsdam High School, to help her develop a short story about brotherhood and a group of friends looking for a way out of their small town in Illinois—a story she was inspired to write after reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“I really like creative writing and I’ve had a couple of ideas swimming around in my head, so it’s a good time to put it all down on paper. Being here offers a chance to just focus on that and not on anything else, like school or piano or something like that,” French said.

Martinez recalled that just last week one of her students was struggling to find her voice. “She was writing a mystery piece, and she wasn’t sure if she should slow down the suspense or give it all away…I was able to help her and she just ran with it. It just shows me that what I’m going to be doing [teaching] is going to matter, and it’s going to be really rewarding,” she said.

For information about the Sheard Literacy Center and the “Write Spot” program, visit www.potsdam.edu/academics/SOEPS/education/litcenter.