Meet Our Instructors: Yasmine Bolden
Yasmine Bolden
Majors: Africana Studies & Writing Seminars
Hi Readers! My name is Yasmine Bolden, I use they/them pronouns, and I'm a third-year student at Johns Hopkins University double majoring in Africana Studies and Writing Seminars, which is our school's creative writing program. Writers in Baltimore Schools was part of the reason I chose to attend Hopkins over other institutions, as I’ve been teaching creative writing since high school and hadn’t encountered any other college experience that directly supported undergraduate students’ engagement in the campus city’s community through community-based learning and pedagogy. I firmly believe that Baltimore should be central rather than tangential to students’ undergraduate careers at Hopkins, and I’m never not surprised by the ways our WBS students continue to innovate not only poetic form and craft in a way that is informed by place and history, but also the ways in which our campus and its long history can be viewed and used. Something I adore specifically about my current school, Margaret Brent, is the students’ continual commitment to radical transparency in a way that echoes that of the high school WBS students I’ve worked with. The students shape so much of their own experience by actively giving us feedback on what lesson plans are compelling and which ones feel like busy work or not in acknowledgement of their pre-existing knowledge. To know what you want, to be able to articulate it, and to feel comfortable to do so at the age of nine and ten years old is so special. Feedback is a gift, and these students stay wrapping and tying bows!
When I'm not studying or singing with my college's Afro-diasporic acapella group, I'm usually writing long poems about cultural identity and the concept of home. That's part of the reason why the 'Where I'm From' lesson plan has by far been my absolute favorite teaching experience during the WBS Teaching course and fellowship. I've had the incredible privilege to teach it three times through the two schools I was placed in through the WBS program (Mount Royal Elementary and Middle last fall and Margaret Brent Elementary and Middle this spring) and through the Baltimore Youth Arts (BYA) program. The lesson plan has led to conversations with non-African-American students about the use of African American Vernacular English in poetry, and, by extension, how students from multilingual backgrounds can incorporate multiple languages and cultural terminologies within the same text. While it’s so difficult to choose a singular favorite teaching moment because each group of students has brought their own flavor of magic to the page and stage, I would say that the ‘Where I’m From’ lesson plan led to one of my all time favorite teaching moments.
While I was helping to group-facilitate the aforementioned lesson plan at BYA, a student asked me for multiple rounds of guidance during the writing of his poem. He seemed really eager to create something that others would like, and through the collaborative generation and revision processes, he eventually chose to write the exact opposite of what he thought people would want to hear when told that he absolutely did not have to share what he wrote with others. I could literally see each draft get more textured and striking, and when he got stuck, I suggested he think about how he would express what he wanted to say through dance, as one of his instructors had mentioned that he was a talented and skilled dancer in styles originating in Baltimore and D.C. During the class-wide sharing period, he had no desire to share his written work, but he still wanted to share some of what he’d worked on during the writing session. One of his regular instructors encouraged him to perform alongside another poet’s reading, and I mimicked her style of encouragement, which was reminiscent of the ways my aunties lovingly but firmly encouraged their loved ones. I recommended he perform some of what he’d choreographed to his poem while I read my poem (even though I felt terrified to read in front of students I’d just met), and he did! It was such a special and impromptu moment that I hold very near and dear to my heart, and really epitomized to me what WBS is all about. If I’m asking students to take a leap, I’ve got to, too!