I think one of the most profound and powerful writing prompt for a young person is to just ask them, what do you see and how does that make you feel? Those are powerful questions to actually allow time for reflection. Just what do you see? What is happening in your neighborhood, what’s happening in your home, what do you notice about this world? And then asking how does that make you feel? And you could even push it further and what do you want to do about it? Or what do you want to do about those feelings? As young people share their findings, I think you realize I’m not the only one who sees this. I’m not the only one who feels this. And I am learning how to articulate and put into words this feeling that sometimes feels overwhelming. And I think that that’s important to help young people find the tools to name what is happening in their world, and then to realize that is not just happening to them.
And that is not just something that’s happening now, but most of what’s happening now has already happened and that people survived that. So we allow young people to tell their stories and then connect them to other stories that have been told. It’s a strengthening that happens that if those folks could survive, if our ancestors and former activists and poets and musicians could survive it all and put their stories down, then they have left an inheritance for us. And so I think that that can be powerful for a young person to first just name what’s happening, articulate their truth, and then connect with someone else living or not living in their classroom, in their neighborhood or not. I say to young people, often, you might not have someone up close and personal that you feel can be a mentor to you that you feel like you could look up to.
I hope you do. I hope that there’s someone in your family, someone in your school, someone in your local community. But if there’s not, there are so many activists and artists who’ve come before you who loved you and were praying for you, and they didn’t even know your name. They were seeing the future and thinking about what the future was going to be, and they were trying to leave the world a better place for me, for you. And I want to connect them to James Baldwin and Toni Morrison and [Lucille] Clifton and all these folks who came and used their voices and used their art to speak up, to speak out, to put on record. I think that that’s important. And I also think that in asking young people to name what they see, sometimes that question can maybe lean into things you want to change about your community. What are the negative things that are happening? How are you going to make change young people? But I also think it’s worth asking, what do you see that brings you joy? What do you see that makes you smile? Because again, it’s important that there’s both yes and yes, there’s a lot to change, and yes, there’s things we want more of. So what do you want more of? What is already working that we can talk about, write about, sing about, and praise.