English teacher Nik Gallichio began implementing the activity called Write Club into the junior and senior English curriculum in 2011 and its popularity has caught on. Write Club explores timed creative argumentation of one topic against another, such as foolish vs. wise or old vs. new.

“My mind was blown by WRITE CLUB’s whip-crack ferocity,” Gallichio said. “I couldn’t wait for my own students to shock each other with the ideas they came up with.”

Typically three out of the five large assignments in all junior year Composition classes involve Write Club, the performances extending for at least three days during class.

“I love it because it’s creative variation of debate,” Write Club participant Mardi Sramek ‘15 said. “I had always considered being on the debate team, but it was too competitive and logical for me.”

The creator of Write Club, “Overlord” Ian Belknap, started write club in order to have a show with original writing that did not require long rehearsals due to family commitments. He believes it has brought many benefits to his daily life.

“Whether as a writer/performer, or as an audience member, on our stage, you get to plant your feet and make your case, in full-throated and unambiguous fashion—something too few of us get to do in our daily lives,” Belknap said. “If you’re in the crowd, you get do lots of hollering (always liberating), but you’re also deputized as an expert in what makes compelling writing and performance—you and your audience-mates make the call together in real time, picking victors and vanquished. Plus: money to charity.”

Gallichio herself has participated at a Write Club performance where the topic was hungry vs. full, and she was arguing for hungry. She decided to write a story about surviving on truth like it was food, and whether there was enough to sustain yourself. The story idea came to her when she was saw a famous photograph of a little boy near a vulture in Sudan during a famine, and how the photographer killed himself a year later because of how many people were questioning his decision to only photograph the child, not help him, Gallichio said.

Come out to see LT face the Geneva Vikings Wednesday, April 22 at 7 p.m. at Corner House Coffee in Lombard.