A group of young writers and rappers spends Thursday eve-nings scribbling in notebooks at the Auburn Library. Last week, when asked to share their responses to the writing prompt  “What motivates you?” the teens and young adults mentioned family, spirituality and music.

The “Writing and Reciting: Healing through Spoken and Written Word” workshop began as a pilot program last summer with the help of a community wellness grant from the Placer Community Foundation in partnership with Placer County, which received grant funding from the State Mental Health Services Act.

“Kids are coming together, they’re talking about shared issues and they’re handling those issues and expressing those issues through spoken and written word,” said Jessica Hubbard, philanthropic services manager at Placer Community Foundation. 

Auburn Hip Hop Congress and PlacerArts co-sponsor the free workshop.  Each week, a different musician or writer teaches topics such as Shakespeare and creative writing. Local rapper Brandon Scott, 19, recently taught songwriting basics to the group. Scott is a member of the Hip Hop Congress and a Chana High School graduate.

Participants snapped for each other, instead of clapping, as they shared their sources of creative motivation. Joseph Torres, a student at Placer High School, read his response in the form of a rap. Torres is working on completing his first demo CD of hip-hop songs.

“My motivation is my dream of bringing conscious hip-hop to the table, and that is 100 percent truth and not a fable,” he shared.

After the discussion about motivation, Scott launched into the meat of his tutorial on the basics of writing rap songs. He played “Young Soul” by Classified on his laptop and asked the group to describe what they heard.  Scott discussed the use of an intro, verses, chorus and “outro” in the song.

“The chorus is super-important because that’s what you want to leave in someone’s head,” he said.

Scott explained how to craft bars of rap. He said a two-line bar has 16 beats and two snares. Two bars make up a stanza.

“Try to make your flow go along with the beat as much as possible,” he added.

He asked participants to create a rap stanza in which the second and fourth lines rhyme. Participants shared their stanzas and some tried free-styling, or improvising, as they rapped without use of notes.

Scott performs hip-hop as “Chozin.” In a recent turn as a motivational speaker, he told how he turned his life in a positive direction after struggles with substance abuse. Natalie Pohley of Hip-Hop Congress organizes “Writing and Reciting.” She said Scott was the main inspiration for the workshop.

“I want to share my experience and I want to change the industry,” Scott said. “Sex, drugs and violence are what most of the music is about. I want to set a trend for younger people and my friends that you can go through life without substances.”

He said he hopes to open a nonprofit recording studio and is working on a business plan and searching for studio space.

Pohley also teaches an ongoing Urban Arts workshop for the Auburn Recreation District. Topics include break dance, hip-hop, mural design, writing music and poetry, music re-cording and production. Classes meet from 3:30-5:15 p.m. Tuesdays in the Teen Center at Recreation Park. Cost is $10 per month for residents.

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Writing and Reciting

When: 4-6 p.m. Thursdays

Where: Auburn Library, 350 Nevada St., Auburn

Cost: Free

Info: Natalie Pohley, nataliepohley@gmail.com; Rocky Zapata, phlip530@gmail.com