All students at Shadow Ridge take at least a few electives every year to experience and learn different subjects. The students who sign up to learn Imaginative Writing are fortunate enough to have Mr. Flynn as their teacher. Flynn has been at Shadow Ridge High School for 10 years, where he has taught Imaginative Writing for five of those years. 

Shadow Ridge is not where Flynn’s passion for creative writing started. Flynn wrote his first story on his mom’s old manual typewriter and though he admitted it wasn’t a very good one page story, it was the beginning of him being interested in imaginative writing. Flynn continued his interest in creative writing classes as an undergraduate from Rhode Island College with Thomas Cobb ,who was the author of the Academy Award-winning 2009 film “Crazy Heart” starring Jeff Bridges. Flynn also worked at his college’s  literary magazine called “Shoreline” and with New England authors in a writing institute hosted by  his college. Though Flynn may have studied in Rhode Island he did eventually come to Las Vegas in October 2012 bringing Imaginative Writing to SRHS since he felt passionate about it.

“My high school didn’t have any classes like Imaginative Writing,” says Flynn, “ I’m not sure if they just didn’t offer it or if there were no teachers interested in teaching it. When the opportunity to teach an Imaginative Writing class here at Shadow came up, I jumped at it. I never had the opportunity at my own high school, so I didn’t want any students here to miss out on a class that I think is very important.”

Flynn’s Imaginative Writing class is an important class. There are certain lessons that he wants to teach his students about in writing such as an appreciation for it and building self-confidence.

“The most important thing I want my students to leave my class with is an appreciation of writing and learning just how fun telling stories can be,” says Flynn, “I also want my students to learn more about themselves as writers, students, and people. Writing can be very therapeutic and a great way to learn more about ourselves. I also try to expose my students to various types of writing and encourage them to share what they write with the rest of the class. I think that’s one of the most important pieces of Imaginative Writing. I really think that the act of sharing our writing in a class setting builds confidence and leads to success in other areas.”

Students are learning just that and so much more; they also love having Flynn as their teacher. Sophomore Eva Vega who is a student in Imaginative writing can agree with that statement too.

“Imaginative Writing class is a fun and creative class though it can be hard when you get behind and Mr. Flynn is a really good teacher. He’s pretty chill and he makes us all laugh, ” says Vega.