The next unit of a free program designed to help local teens with their writing skills will begin this week at Athens-Limestone County Public Library.

The program, dubbed “Ink Slingers,” gives students in seventh through 12th grades a chance to work on not only their writing but reading, social and problem-solving skills as well.

The new unit, which will focus on the different items in a writer’s toolbox, begins Thursday. Ink Slingers meets 4:30 p.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month.

Amanda Coleman, youth services coordinator for the library, said some students who attend the program have shown an increase in their English and reading grades.

She said students can register at any time until the class is full. As of Monday, there were 10 spots remaining.

“Each unit we do is different,” Coleman said. “The idea behind the writer’s toolbox is to show teens they can always find an idea, and once they have it, it shows them the steps to completing the writing process.”

Previous topics for Ink Slingers have included screenwriting and poetry. Coleman said the program has been running since 2015, and many participants are interesting in becoming authors or writers for newspapers or magazines.

She said what is now Ink Slingers began as a program for fourth- through eighth-grade students, but as participants got older, they asked Coleman to continue the classes for teenagers because they enjoyed it so much.

Coleman said students begin each session with an allotted 15 minutes to socialize and talk about their projects.

“Then, we jump into our writing activities,” Coleman said. “One of the students’ favorite things is a share story. Each student writes one sentence and passes it around, so it gets them to think creatively, to think outside the box and complete the story.”

Coleman said she has seen a lot of success from participants over the year, whether it be in writing skills or learning to work together as a unit.

“One reason I enjoy working with these teens so much is a lot of them come in looking for some kind of outlet to express themselves creatively,” she said. “Some of them have social anxiety and fear of speaking in public, and they learn to build their self-confidence and talk in front of others. It’s very rewarding for me, and it’s been a good program for the library.”

Coleman said some participants are homeschool students, so the collaborative sessions give them a chance to socialize with people their age that have similar interests.

Anyone interested in signing up can visit www.alcpl.org/teens and follow the link for teen class registration.