November 2024
By Litzy Moreno, Staff Reporter, Migrations Editor-in-Chief
Since its founding in 2018, the Migrations team at Kipp Austin Collegiate has worked diligently to turn the club into a lively and welcoming space where creativity can truly thrive. With engaging monthly competitions and a focus on highlighting KAC students’ unique innovativeness, they’ve created an environment that inspires everyone to share their ideas and express themselves freely.
The Migrations Literacy Journal club, sponsored by English teachers Franklin Strong and Lydia Garrighan, is led by Editors-in-Chief Luis Lopez and Litzy Moreno. This club fosters a creative culture at KAC, providing students with a platform to advocate for their messages through literature and art.
How does The Migrations Literacy Journal Club accomplish this?
They host competitions centered around a rotating theme, allowing students to express themselves creatively. For, example, this September, they collaborated with La Sociedad to hold a competition for Hispanic Heritage Month, where students submitted works that showcased their heritage and personal identities. KAC senior Brisa Gomez won the competition, beautifully reflecting her mixed Mexican and Guatemala heritage.
Strong remarked, “I’ve seen students who are very shy write and share poetry, winning awards and blossoming from that experience, which encourages them to continue sharing and writing.”
Additionally, the club organizes the Poetry Slam every spring, providing a stage for students to express themselves freely. They also fundraise during First Friday events by selling tortas to support the publication of the Migrations journal.
The journal features selected submissions from competitions, poetry slam, and contributions from English/Spanish and art classes. When planning the journal, the art team designs the journal cover, while the literature team focuses on editing and translating words into Spanish to promote inclusivity in KAC’s bilingual community.
At the end of the year, the club hosts a book launch party to celebrate their migrations journal publication at First Light Books, where students whose works are included in the journal present them to an audience and students and faculty can purchase a copy of the journal.
In 2018, former KAC English teacher Ken Snyder and Strong founded the Migrations Literary Journal Club, driven by their belief that KAC’s student population was brimming with creativity and culture. They aimed to create a student led club that provides students a platform to express themselves and share their talents with the school community. Strong, who previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of his high school’s literary journal, was particularly inspired to foster a similar creative environment at KAC. He believes the club has successfully bounced back over the past years by publishing hard copies of the journal, continuing to grow the migrations staff, and creating an inclusive environment.
Everyone has creativity within them and is welcome to join The Migrations Literacy Journal club every Thursday during the second half of lunch in room 346!
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