In general, you will want to do strength training two or three days a week, allowing recovery days between sessions.

Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set and how to apply it to schoolwork.

Now known as "New York's shared space for art and play," the island, which lies between Manhattan and Brooklyn in Upper New York Bay, is closed to cars but open to summer tourists who flock for festivals, picnics, adventures, as well as these "legal graff

One of the sessions that moved me the most was state violence on black women and black girls, says Chasin, explaining that in one room, people wrote down the names of those killed because of it.

The 2016 season runs through June and features sessions facilitated by everyone from dancers to domestic workers.

Though Chasin says the focus of the work is on the activity of writing, rather than the text that ends up getting written, some of the work that comes out of the sessions has stuck with her.