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Read one of the articles below, to find out more about what motivates writers to write.

Type your group's responses to the questions in a new post.

Be sure to indicate the following:

In the title of the post, list your group number, names of your members
e.g. Group 1 (Bella, Cherry, Maddie)

In the body of the post, type your group's response to the question.

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"I was born on a Thursday, the 12th of August, 1937, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. My name at birth was Walter Milton Myers. I was about two years old when my mother died and then I was inexplicably given to Florence and Herbert Dean. I was raised in Harlem by Herbert, who was African-American and Florence, who was German and Native American and wonderful. They loved me very much and I grew to love Harlem.

As a child, my life revolved around my neighborhood and church. The neighborhood protected me and the church guided me. I resisted as much as I could. I was smart (all kids are smart) but didn't do that well in school. I had a speech impediment and often found myself leading with my fists when teased.

I found solace in books. My mother read to me from a very young age. From my comfortable perch on her lap, I would watch as she moved her finger slowly across the page and I'd imagine the characters. Reading pushed me to discover worlds beyond my landscape, especially during dark times when my uncle was murdered and my family became dysfunctional with alcohol and grief.

I wrote well in high school and an English teacher (bless her!) recognized this and advised me to keep on writing no matter what happened to me. "It's what you do," she said. I ended up dropping out of high school (although now Stuyvesant High claims me as a graduate) and joined the army on my 17th birthday.

After the army, I was struggling through life-holding on just enough to survive. Remembering my high school teacher's words, I began writing at night. I wrote short columns for a local tabloid and stories for men's magazines.

A turning point for me was the discovery of a short story by James Baldwin about the black urban experience. It gave me permission to write about my own experiences. Somehow I always go back to the most turbulent periods of my own life. I write books for the troubled boy I once was, and for the boy who lives within me still. It's what I do."

- Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers won the Council on Interracial Books for Children contest in 1969, which resulted in the publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? Since then, he has won more awards than any author for young adults, and is one of the most prolific writers, with more than 110 books to his credit.

He is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He has won the Coretta Scott King Award five times and received two Newbery Honors. His book, Monster, was the first winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, a National Book Award Finalist, and a New York Times Bestseller. He delivered the 2009 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, a distinction reserved for an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of children's literature. Most recently, he served as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, a post appointed by the Library of Congress.

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"I was born on a Thursday, the 12th of August, 1937, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. My name at birth was Walter Milton Myers. I was about two years old when my mother died and then I was inexplicably given to Florence and Herbert Dean.

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Article 2: Pandemic Diaries: Letters, videos and illustrated poetry from migrant workers

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Article 2: Pandemic Diaries: Letters, videos and illustrated poetry from migrant workers

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Pandemic diaries: Letters, videos and illustrated poetry from migrant workers

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SINGAPORE - A coronavirus patient spends 60 days isolated in hospital; entrepreneurs struggle with the loss of business; overseas Singaporeans are forced to return home abruptly; families celebrate a quiet Hari Raya Puasa. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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Article 3: Tekka toy shop inspired migrant worker's prize-winning poem

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Article 3: Tekka toy shop inspired migrant worker's prize-winning poem

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Tekka toy shop inspired migrant worker’s prize-winning poem

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A visit to a Tekka toy shop inspired construction engineer Rajendran Vijayakanth, 29, to write the whimsical, bittersweet poem that would win him the first prize at the seventh Migrant Worker Poetry Competition. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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Article 4: Prize winning poetry from the supermarket

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Article 4: Prize winning poetry from the supermarket

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Books: Prize-winning poetry from the supermarket

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SINGAPORE - Poet Samuel Lee likes supermarkets. He frequents them four to five times a week. There is something "inherently funny" about them, he says - the lurid colours in the sterile aisles, the meandering paths some spatially-challenged shoppers take, the disembodied announcements of "Paging the store manager to the exotic foods section", and how, despite being a place packed with food, there are no smells.

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Article 5: Keeping a diary makes you happier

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Article 5: Keeping a diary makes you happier

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Dear diarists take heart. Writing about your feelings can help the brain overcome emotional upsets and leave you feeling happier, psychologists have found.

Brain scans on volunteers showed that putting feelings down on paper reduces activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for controlling the intensity of our emotions.

Psychologists who discovered the "Bridget Jones effect" said it worked whether people elaborated on their feelings in a diary, penned lines of poetry, or even jotted down song lyrics to express their negative emotions.

Matthew Lieberman, a psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, said the effect differs from catharsis, which usually involves coming to terms with an emotional problem by seeing it in a different light.

When people wrote about their feelings, medical scans showed that their brain activity matched that seen in volunteers who were consciously trying to control their emotions.

"Writing seems to help the brain regulate emotion unintentionally. Whether it's writing things down in a diary, writing bad poetry, or making up song lyrics that should never be played on the radio, it seems to help people emotionally," Dr Lieberman said.

The psychologists investigated the effect by inviting volunteers to visit the lab for a brain scan before asking them to write for 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days. Half of the participants wrote about a recent emotional experience, while the other half wrote about a neutral experience.

Those who wrote about an emotional experience showed more activity in part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn dampened down neural activity linked to strong emotional feelings.

Men seemed to benefit from writing about their feelings more than women, and writing by hand had a bigger effect than typing, Dr Lieberman said.

"Men tend to show greater benefits and that is a bit counterintuitive. But the reason might be that women more freely put their feelings into words, so this is less of a novel experience for them. For men it's more of a novelty," Lieberman said.

The study showed that writing about emotions in an abstract sense was more calming than describing them in vivid language, which could make people feel more upset by reactivating their original feelings.

The findings suggest that keeping a diary, making up poetry and scribbling down song lyrics can help people get over emotional distress.

The study raises the issue of why so many writers, from Martin Amis to Michel Houellebecq are not the jolliest of souls. "What we don't know is: what would that person would be like if they weren't writing?"Lieberman said.

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A diary makes you happier and helps brain cope with emotional upsets, psychologists say

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Psychologists say 'Bridget Jones effect' of writing about feelings helps brain cope with emotional upsets

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Article 6: Fukushima Poet: 'Every time I felt the aftershocks, there was something that swayed and that something became words'

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Article 6: Fukushima Poet: 'Every time I felt the aftershocks, there was something that swayed and that something became words'

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Fukushima poet: "Every time I felt the aftershocks, there was something that swayed and that something became words"

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When a devastating earthquake rattled Japan in 2011, crippling a nuclear plant in Fukushima and triggering the country's worst nuclear disaster, people left the prefecture in droves to escape radiation. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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Article 7: The Late Walter Dean Myers Wrote In The Language of Teens

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Article 7: The Late Walter Dean Myers Wrote In The Language of Teens

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Writer Walter Dean Myers died on Wednesday after a brief illness at age 76, leaving mourners in the adult world and young readers who saw themselves in his books. He expanded the face of publishing so that many children of color saw themselves reflected in his work.

Myers wrote more than 100 books, most of them in the genre of fiction for young adults (YA). Most of those dealt with the challenges of urban life for young black men, and the complicated moral minefield they have to negotiate to stay in one piece.

"A turning point for me was the discovery of a short story by James Baldwin about the black urban experience," Myers wrote. "It gave me permission to write about my own experiences. Somehow I always go back to the most turbulent periods of my own life. I write books for the troubled boy I once was."

Walter Milton Myers was born on Aug. 12, 1937, in Martinsburg, W.Va., but he didn't stay there long. His mother died in childbirth when he was a toddler, and his father, George, sent Walter and his brother Mickey to stay with a Harlem couple he knew, Florence and Herbert Dean. (Florence was George Myers' first wife. In tribute to the parents who raised him, Myers added Dean to his name.) The Deans raised the boys in a loving, protected environment, although young Walter often got tantalizing glimpses of the Harlem street life he wasn't allowed to investigate up close. He was already a rabid reader when he started school at Public School 125. He was one of those kids who was intelligent, but not academically inclined. And he got teased a lot for having a speech impediment.

Tall, thin and with that speech impediment, Myers was smart, angry and, as he told the Los Angeles Times in 1997, "always in trouble." (He didn't tolerate being teased for his stutter.) He hovered around the fringes of Harlem's young criminal life, but it was reading that saved him.

"Reading pushed me to discover worlds beyond my landscape," he wrote on his website, "especially during dark times when my uncle was murdered and my family became dysfunctional with alcohol and grief."

Fortunately for Myers, a favorite teacher recognized his talent for writing and pushed him to continue with it, no matter what. Gratified, he listened.

He dropped out of high school, but kept writing. He entered the military and served three years in the Army - and kept writing. He wrote columns for the local newspaper and stories for small magazines. His big break came when he won a contest sponsored by The Council on Interracial Books for Children. His winning entry, Where Does the Day Go?, was a picture book. Eventually, he segued into YA books, and became something of an icon for young male readers, especially young African-Americans.

Whether it was a best-selling book about a young man's trial following a crime in Harlem ( Monster), or a novel about the Vietnam War ( Fallen Angels), Myers' readers saw themselves in his books.

And he often saw himself in them. He made a practice of visiting young men in juvenile detention centers. He said in several interviews that he liked to spend time with the kids who didn't receive visitors - the boys who seem to have been forgotten - to tell them not to give up.

Myers was an indefatigable circuit rider for readers and literature, wherever the cause took him, to juvenile hall or the richly set tables at literary fundraisers.

He was also, says Phoebe Yeh, publisher of Crown Books for Young Readers, "a Renaissance man." He played several musical instruments and was a Le Cordon Bleu-trained cook. (Yeh says Myers liked to make pâté for his cat.)

By the time he died, Myers had been showered with almost all the awards a YA author could get. He's had two Newbery Honor Books and a Caldecott Medal, and was a three-time finalist for the National Book Award. He also received an unprecedented six Coretta Scott King Book Awards and the inaugural Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. And he was appointed the Library of Congress' third "National Ambassador for Young People's Literature." (The slogan he chose: "Reading Is Not Optional.")

Walter Dean Myers died at age 76. He's survived by his wife, Constance, and his children Christopher (an artist who often collaborated with him on children's picture books) and Michael Dean. His daughter, Karen, died earlier.

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The Late Walter Dean Myers Wrote In The Language Of Teens

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subscribe to Code Switch podcast subscribe to Code Switch podcast Writer Walter Dean Myers died on Wednesday after a brief illness at age 76, leaving mourners in the adult world and young readers who saw themselves in his books. He expanded the face of publishing so that many children of color saw themselves reflected in his work.

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Poetry lets me develop spiritually, says veteran poet Lee Tzu Pheng at Singapore Writers Festival

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SINGAPORE - It is "not by bread alone" that we can grow as human beings, said Singaporean poet Anne Lee Tzu Pheng on Sunday (Nov 5)at the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF). Read more at straitstimes.com.

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The writer was inspired by his English teacher and James Baldwin's short story.

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Mr Myer's teacher and Mr James Baldwin inspired him to write. He also wrote to survive (make ends meet).

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The writer was inspired by everything around him, his experiences of life.
He missed home..by writing poems enable him to reconnect with his memories from his hometown.

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A teacher recognized and encouraged him. Death of his uncle and his dysfunctional family allowed him an outpouring and an outlet.
Growth - to provide a voice for his theme on Black young American - to be there for the forgotten teenagers. (outliers of society - not to give up)
He was also inspired by Dean who wrote the poem and he was captured by it.

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The writer wrote about toys in a toy shop. His intention was to relive his childhood and reminisce about the childhood he had.

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Like Jack, he has an English teacher who motivated him. Similar to Jack, who was inspired by the Walter Dean Myers (WDM), Walter Dean Myers himself was inspired by James Baldwin. Both Jack and WDM, they had to navigate through grief as one of their core life experiences.

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Having multiple negative experiences, real life events and having a someone to look to (another author - James Balwin)
A teacher encouraged him to pursue writing

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His teacher was his main source of inspiration, who encouraged him to continually write. She recognised his talent from an early age.

He was also inspired by James Baldwin, which led to the writer penning down his personal experiences as a person of colour.

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He was inspired by the short stories from James Baldwin as well as his own experiences as a troubled boy.

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The writer was inspired when he saw some toys on display.

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Poetry allows us to express our feelings and emotions.

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Writing about how he used his life experiences as sources of inspirations on his writing journey.
- what inspired him to write
- his teacher, who was a key figure in his writing journey
- his initial exposure to the world of words by his mother
- how he used writing as an coping tool to overcome difficult times
- using words as an outlet to speak and be heard due to his speech impediment

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Jack had a teacher that encouraged him and Jack also had an author that inspired him. Similarly, for WDM, also had a encouraging teacher and an author which inspired him

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What do the writers in your article write about? What do they hope to achieve through writing?

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What do the writers in your article write about? What do they hope to achieve through writing?