In partnership with Teens with a Purpose, Hear This Hampton Roads, A School/Community Based Poetry and Literacy Program offers a series of workshops that allows poet mentors to help middle and high school students develop strong writing and speaking skills. Regardless of whether students self-identify as “poets,” participants learn how to represent themselves, their experience, and their ideas powerfully. Sessions loop back to reading, writing, speaking, and listening standards. In addition to learning about literary tools and communication techniques, students apply these tools to magnify the strength of their writing and their speaking. These residences are facilitated by trained Teens With a Purpose Poet Mentors, who partner with teachers and other adult mentors to bring high-level creative writing and performance poetry workshops into the classroom and after school clubs. The curriculum utilized is designed to help students bring their own personal narratives into dialogue with the issues and themes already being studied in the classroom and happening in current affairs.