Hello! My name is Emily Corwin and I am interning at LitWorld this summer. I hail from the great borough of Brooklyn and will be starting my junior year at Amherst College this fall. For the past four summers I’ve worked at a sleepaway camp in the Berkshires and I’m so excited to be back in NYC helping out at the LitWorld office and leading programming for the Story Power Camp.

Today we started Identity week with our group of 7 and 8 year olds. The campers began by playing “Cross the Line”, a game in which the leader asks participants to step forward if they agree with a given statement. We wanted the kids to start thinking about their personal passions, what makes them unique, and the game proved to be a great way to get them to open up. After some guidance from the interns, campers led the game independently, asking about everything from favorite musical artist to favorite type of chicken.

After heading inside, the kids answered questions about what they’d read over the weekend. They particularly enjoyed the exercise in which they had to imagine themselves as characters in their books. I worked with Charley who wrote an entire story about his future as a basketball player. He compared himself to the figures in his book, Basketball Stars, deciding to play for the Los Angeles Lakers before returning home to join the Harlem Globetrotters.

Today was a great start and we’re looking forward to challenging our campers to explore their identities!

-Emily C.