We handed in our final manuscript of this year’s YABP to print, indicating an end of the hard work of our wonderful students from Manual Arts High School, volunteers, and staff all together. Inspired by their “Freedom Mixtape”, the students wrote a book called Sounds of Freedom: Beats on Concrete, a collection of personal essays on freedom. They will be celebrating the release of the publication on May 15th!
Learn more about the theme and inspired songs here.
After two weeks of in-class workshops to brainstorm story ideas, students started to type up their stories, and worked one-on-one with volunteer tutors to craft their pieces. Sharing a personal story could be uncomfortable and difficult, however, Manual Arts students learned the power of their words and contributed their voices to the discussion of freedom. As the student Monica Ramos said, “I’m most proud of I was able to write down my emotions and turn it into a story that people will read and maybe even relate to it.” The 8-week intense work means growth, dedication and passion. Now, it’s time to proudly look back on how far we have gone so far.
Here’s the timeline of the 2019 Young Authors’ Book Project:
Jan 15th: First Workshop in Classroom
On Jan 15th, we had our first workshop in the home classroom with the Journalism class and English class. Our project manager T created a cool turntable worksheet to help students brainstorm their story with the inspiration of their freedom song. We also listened to Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar’s “Freedom”, and Shea Serrano’s narrative inspired by Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” from the Rap Yearbook. We discussed as a group to analyze what freedom meant to the artists, and how can we link that to our own definition of freedom.
Feb 1st: Panel with Previous YABP Authors at Manual Arts
On Feb 1st, we held a panel in the Writer’s Room, and invited previous YABP authors at Manual Arts Michelle Diaz, Demetre Schmidt, Ada Fernandez, Ashley Carter and Alexa Velez to share their experiences of participating YABP. Students of this year’s project attended the panel, and engaged in the Q&A session with the panelists.
Feb 7th: First One-on-one Session with Volunteers
Feb 7th was a big day because we brought the first group of volunteers to the Writer’s Room to work one-on-one with the students. Students shared their ideas with the tutors, got feedbacks, then pulled out the laptops to type up. We set a goal for each session in order to make writing a progressive journey, and we were so proud that our students all handed in well-crafted pieces at the end of the one-month workshops. Many YABP volunteers were our old friends, who had been volunteering at 826LA for years. We were also so glad to have the author of the The Book of Unknown Americans Cristina Henríquez flied from Chicago to support us. She worked with several students, and gave them professional feedbacks from a writer’s point of view.
Feb 25th: First Round Copyedit
With Love Cafe was where we kicked it off with part of the copyediting team: T, Melina, Sylvia. Later, 826LA Director of In-schools, Marisa Gedney, and two amazing volunteers Anna Boudinot and Sharon Cohen, also supported the first round of copyedits in just one week! The team read through all final drafts of the students, proofreading on grammars, and sorting the essays into different chapters by theme.
Feb 27th: Student Ed-board Meeting
Our Student Ed-board meeting was held after school at Writer’s Room, with pizza and snacks served, of course. Ed Board started with all students reading the work that had been produced throughout the project and discussing themes, possible titles, and chapters organization. They reflected on the process of the project, shared their own process of writing, and discussed the overall the impact that telling their stories had on them and others. Together they drafted an introduction for the book that captured the deep connect between music, story-telling, and the pursuit of freedom.
Mar 4th: Author Photoshoot
Our young authors were so ready for the day to shoot their official author photos! We were lucky to have an amazing photography Colleen Callahan to come to Manual and take care of the photoshooting. If you are wondering, all author photos are on the cover of our book this year!
Mar 6th: Students Approved Final Pieces
The final copyedited essays were done, and we brought them back to the classroom to get our authors’ approved. Students proudly wrote “approved” on their essays, and approved their final author bio they had written the week prior. Now, everything was ready for the second round of copyedits made by Miranda Tsang.
March 6 -April 12: Pre-printing
After first and second copyedit rounds, the manuscript was turned in to our Designer, Rachel Mendelsohn. With the help of Verynice, our Book Designers this year, all stories, photos, bios, were plugged into layout. This also included the Introduction written by the Student Editorial Board and a Foreword written by none other than John Legend. One more copyediting round was completed, and the layout was reviewed two times more t make sure all was ready for print. Then: off to the printers!
May 15: The Sounds of Freedom Release Party
More to come!
Become an In-Schools volunteer and support students with more projects like this. Sign up for a Volunteer 101 here. Sounds of Freedom will be available for purchase at the Time Travel Mart soon. To purchase previous YABP publications click here.