Just before the holidays, I completed a 10-week residency with girls, ages 12 - 16, at PACE in Pinellas Park. PACE is a nonprofit, alternative school for girls who may have ended up in the corrections system due to truancy or behavioral issues at the regular public schools they were attending. PACE is only partially funded by the Pinellas county school board. Much of the operations budget has to come from private donors. A fundraiser was planned for November, in which the girls would perform a spoken word poem that told a collective tale about the ways in which many girls come to PACE. It was a difficult piece, full of metaphors about social injustice, and graphic details about addiction, rape, and domestic violence. I used  thebodypoetik  techniques with the girls to bring their imagination, empathy, and shared experiences to the script. We played physical improv, group bonding, and vocalization games to help them relate to and really own their...