Manchester school children explore issues of slavery

Performance poet Richard Grant, aka Dreadlockalien, used language and poetry to explore issues of slavery with pupils at Abraham Moss High School in Crumpsall and Levenshulme High School for Girls this week.

The visits by were arranged by Kaye Tew, an outreach coordinator at MMU’s Writing School, and sponsored by the Manchester International Festival.

Dreadlockalien, Poet Laureate for Birmingham 2005-06, involved the pupils in Rap Wars and the writing days for both high schools culminated in performances.

Impressive and inspiring

Barbara Reynolds, Head of English at Levenshulme High School for Girls, said: "Dreadlockalien really was fantastic. Around 70 of our pupils, of a wide range of abilities, took part in the writing days and all responded brilliantly without exception. The students produced some excellent creative writing and even some of the less confident children got up on stage to perform in front of 200 of their peers.”

Barbara continued: "What I also found impressive was that the themes covered by Dreadlockalien all linked to the national curriculum and he managed to hit all the relevant targets and requirements in a really exciting way."

Creativity in the community

MMU Writing School works to inspire youngsters in the region's schools to write creatively via the Association of Creative Writing & English (ACWE). established in 2005.

ACWE provides writing workshops for pupils, master classes and reading events for teachers and is currently producing its third anthology - All Write 2007 - of the best writing by students from schools and colleges across the North West.

Manchester International Festival 2009 is themed on slavery.

For further information on resources available at ACWE go to http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/english/acwe/.