Writing plays an important role in adolescent literacy development, but school writing is often too rigid to accommodate their personal needs, not allowing them to write for different purposes and different audiences. Studies of writing generally focus on learning to write or writing to learn. Using a sociocultural lens, the authors focused on writing to live or writing for "personal growth" by engaging students to anchor their writing into four platforms--(1) defining self; (2) becoming resilient; (3) engaging others; and (4) building capacity--in a collaborative writing environment that was both engaging and supportive. This article illustrates how writing became a social act for the young adolescent males participating in the second annual African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute (AAAMSLI) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Reading Clinic during the summer of 2009. The authors discuss the potential and anticipated benefits of raw writing and share their experience during the summer institute which highlights the need to grant adolescents opportunities to write texts that they find meaningful and significant.