FREE event! This presentation will be held via Zoom Meeting
WIL Gives Back: The Justice Read
This proposed initiative, “The Justice Read: A Library and Community Read Project,” will create the opportunity to begin addressing racism in the Great Lakes Bay Region (GLBR) in two ways: 1) by building a Little Free Library, or “Justice Library,” stocked with anti-racism books that are available for loan to any member of the community, and 2) by creating a “community read” based on one of these titles. “The Justice Read” will foster conversations about system racism, white privilege, and social justice, and, by doing so, will help all members of the GLBR work towards equity and inclusivity.
12:00 pm: Zoom Conference Call
Zoom Networking Break Out Rooms Before Speaker
Helen Raica-Klotz is the Director of the Saginaw Valley State (SVSU) Writing Center and the Saginaw / Bay Community Writing Centers. She has her Masters in English from Central Michigan University, with graduate coursework in TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language). She has worked in writing centers for fifteen years, with over 40 conference presentations and publications to her credit. Ms. Raica-Klotz also serves as the current Saginaw Bay Writing Project Director, which provides classes and workshops for area K-12 teachers to enhance their ability to teach writing in their classrooms.
Ms. Raica-Klotz has authored over 25 national, state, and regional grants, and she has facilitated multiple programs to support writing in the Great Lakes Bay region. In addition to overseeing two community writing centers, the first of their kind in the state of Michigan, she coordinates a creative writing program for inmates in the Saginaw Correctional Facility, created a series of art and writing workshops for Saginaw High School and SVSU students, and organized several poetry slams, writing workshops, and writing events in the tri-cities.
As a former member English department, Ms. Raica-Klotz taught writing courses at SVSU, where she has served as the Coordinator for the First-Year Writing Program and the Chair of the University Writing Committee. She has worked as the “Writer-in-Residence” at the Midland Alternative High School for women and as a freelance journalist for The Bay City Times, The Saginaw News, and The Flint Journal. She believes that writing is a valuable skill that we can use to understand ourselves and the world around us.
When she is not teaching writing, she likes to write. She also likes to spend time with her husband, Steve, and her children, Gaia and Gabe, kayaking, hiking, and skiing throughout our great state of Michigan.
