Buckeye Reporter

(SPRINGFIELD, Ohio) – Schaefer Middle School student Corinna Jackson learned early on about the dangers of the world. 

Since I was a little kid my mom has taught me to watch my every movement and that in this world as a growing young woman I needed to be more careful than other kids my age.

Jackson is one of 10 students from the Springfield City School District honored this morning by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost as a finalist in the “Do the Write Thing” challenge, a national program that asks middle-schoolers to discuss how violence impacts them and to share their ideas about reducing violence in their community.

“I want you to know, I am so proud of Springfield City Schools’ third year in the program,” Yost said in a video shared with students during an awards celebration. “You’re the place it all started – the first one back in 2021 – and you’re still going strong.” The attorney general concluded by congratulating the 10 finalists, whose work was “chosen as standouts from among hundreds of essays submitted by your fellow students – that’s impressive!”

Since launching Do the Write Thing with the Springfield district, Yost’s office has brought four additional school districts into Ohio’s program: Canton, Lima, Youngstown and Zanesville.

Do the Write Thing encourages students to put in their own words – maybe for the first time – personal and sometimes-painful experiences. In that sense, the writing exercise is meant to be cathartic, a tool to help them move on.

The Springfield program received 500 submissions from seventh- and eighth-graders in Hayward, Roosevelt and Schaefer middle schools. The award ceremony took place at the John Legend Theater.

Community members and business leaders volunteered to judge the student writing submissions. The top 10 stories have been printed as a booklet – to be shared across the state to bring greater attention to the problem of violence.

Among Springfield’s 10 finalists, Jackson and Juelz Clark will join six students from the other participating districts as Ohio’s ambassadors to the “Do the Write Thing” national conference in July in Washington, D.C.

Springfield City Schools Superintendent Robert Hill expressed he is blown away by the students’ choice to participate in the program.

“Their levels of courage, self-awareness and solution-based thinking are well beyond their middle school years – and I am so proud to call each one of them Springfield City School District students,” Hill said. “I have had the privilege of watching this program blossom and become bigger and better every year. Along with that, I’ve had the even greater pleasure of watching some of our students who have gone through the DtWT program go on to even larger, nonviolence activism platforms and advocate for a better world for all of us.

“That has been one of the greatest joys of this program, and I look for many more to follow.”

Do the Write Thing, founded in 1994 and organized by the National Campaign to Stop Youth Violence, has reached millions of students nationwide. 

Original source can be found here.