On March 19, 2024, Escalante Schools PTA, in collaboration with The Byway, hosted their third annual LitJam — a writing conference for 5th-8th grade students in Garfield County. Five schools from the district, totaling 135 students, attended the one-day event.
Students attended a keynote address from visiting author, Janet Sumner Johnson, and then chose various breakout workshops taught by local and visiting writers. Almost 100 of the attending students submitted writing samples that were reviewed by a group of judges prior to the event. Exceptional student writers were recognized in an awards assembly for their writing.
As one of the LitJam Committee members this year, I was incredibly touched by the effort, generosity, and dedication on the various levels of participants — the students, the schools, the presenters and judges, and the community at large. No one who was involved in LitJam had an easy time of it. And I hope they viewed their sacrifices as valuable.
Most of the attending students wrote essays, stories, or poems. In the past we suggested students use polished school assignments. But this year we encouraged the students’ submissions be student-directed and be topics of their choosing. The students delivered!
The submissions were divers in topics and full of color and personality. Our LitJam logo was redesigned this year by a student artist, Sadie McKnight (she’s a writer too)! It’s not easy to share a piece of yourself in this way and the students did it!
Not only did the students end up with an extra assignment, but so did the teachers. The time spent informing, encouraging, editing, and reviewing student work, on top of other responsibilities sets our teachers apart. I so enjoyed hearing educators’ excitement over their student’s work when describing the efforts students made.
We have great teachers here! Escalante High School staff welcomed the students into their spaces and organized a career fair for 9th-12th grade students to attend — all so that we could have full use of the school.
Then there was Bryce Valley Elementary staff who attended LitJam (with two of their educators acting as presenters) then hustled home to set up for their own major fundraising event for a fellow staff member. It’s not easy to fit one more thing in, especially as we already wear so many hats in our small communities, but our schools did it!
The LitJam presenters spent a few hours of their day to facilitate their classes and that doesn’t account for the preparation. They were all members of the community, a few visiting family members, and our traveling author.
Bonnie Jensen, Ward Williams, Kevin Berend, Karen Munson, Ellie Paxson, Chuck Bullington, Heather McKnight, Jared Brems, Ed O’Kane, Robbin Peterson, Grace Welker, Jemma Young, Pete Peterson, and Janet Johnson collectively taught 40 classes. The topics included song writing, poetry, voice inflection, revision, and writing for a diverse audience, among other things.
Students had a good variety of topics to choose from! Student writing judges spent time reading, scoring, and providing positive constructive feedback to each student. It’s not easy to jump into an unfamiliar setting and tailor it for a young audience, but our presenters did it!
Finally, our community. What can I say? They show up. They deliver. They care. First, funding. We did get a grant this year to help cover the cost of our presenter thanks to the Utah State Library Division. And the rest of the cost was made through PTA fundraising efforts: concession stands, bake sales, and donations all from our Escalante community.
Each class had a community volunteer to assist the presenters. The book fair and after-party bake sale were provided by our people. And of course, the committee itself — Robbin Peterson, Karen Munson, Heather McKnight, and Jenny Evans — put in work behind the scenes to make things run smoothly. It’s not easy to keep showing up, but our community did it once again.
I’ll add in one last shoutout to our visiting author, Janet Sumner Johnson, who traveled quite the distance from Cache Valley — making this commitment a three-day trip for undoubtedly a smaller audience than usual. Her time wasn’t the only thing she was generous with. Thank you, Janet!
The goal of LitJam — to celebrate literacy and encourage students in their writing — is the motivation and face of the event, but the investment from so many people around these students is the heart of it, and I hope everyone involved had a little taste of that too.
– by Naketa Martel
Feature image caption: Utah author Janet Sumner Johnson presents as keynote speaker at the LitJam literacy conference at Escalante High School on March 19. She had students roll out a spool of the rejection letters she received from literary agents on her first book, which spanned a little longer than the width of the auditorium stage. Courtesy of AJ Martel, The Byway.
Read about last year’s LitJam and keynote speaker in Students Practice in Literacy at Escalante’s LitJam.