Classes & Workshops For Youth

Creative Writing Day Camps & Workshops
for Children & Teens

For details about SummerWrite 2002, including registration fees, see the SummerWrite 2002 General Information Page.

Week 8: August 19–23

Ages: 6–8

¡Bienvenidos! Fun With Spanish

• Instructor: Julie Harris [ bio ]
• Ages: 6–8
• Mornings, 9 a.m.–Noon, August 19–23

¡Bienvenidos! Welcome!

Come join us as we explore the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. This fun, action-packed week will include: trying the Mexican hat dance, building your own yummy burrito and breaking a piñata. Learn new words, play traditional Hispanic games, sing Spanish songs, and see and hear things from Mexico and Spain.

Books For Dessert

• Instructor: Donna Marbach [ bio ]
• Ages: 6–9
• August 19–23, Afternoons, 1–4 p.m.

This workshop may be taken as a continuation of last week's "Banquet of Books" or as it's own separate class

Different stories, poems and techniques will be highlighted. It will offer young readers and writers a feast of literary activities to further a lifelong love of books and creative expression. By hearing favorite stories read aloud, participants will get a taste of different writing styles. Together, the children will savor the fun of language through playing games, creating art projects, doing skits or puppet shows, and writing their own poems and stories. They will also learn specific writing skills ("show, don't tell").

For our banquet's dessert, each child will have the opportunity to write his or her own book, complete with illustrations and a unique cover design. With this activity, we will explore the writing process in depth; first writing a draft, then correcting our mistakes and deciding on layout and design.

Reading this self-published book to friends and family will be our "cherry on top."

Ages: 8–12

Writers & Cooks

• Instructor: Ann Lerminaux [ bio ]
• Ages: 8–12
• Mornings, 9 a.m.–Noon, August 19–23
• Note: Additional supply fee: $25

Cook up a storm and write your own cookbook in this busy, creative (and tasty) workshop for budding young cooks and writers.

Taught by a cooking instructor, this workshop will take place in a local state-of-the-art kitchen. Participants will work from a daily menu; cooking, eating and discussing the meal for each day. They will write (and illustrate) the recipes (including their own creative variations) that reflects their experience.

Note: This popular class will be held at a church kitchen near Writers & Books. We will send directions.

Ages: 9–13

For A Song

• Instructor: Doug Waterman [ bio ]
• Ages: 9–13
• Mornings, 9 a.m.–Noon, August 19–23

Anything can be a song! A book you love, or a day you hate. Strong feelings are the number one ingredient you need to turn everyday life into your own song. In this workshop, we'll sharpen our songwriters' tools, and explore techniques to help us find our own song. In the end, you will have an opportunity to perform for one another and your invited guests. Musicians are very welcome, but musical training is not a must. Robert Burns couldn't carry a tune, and he's one of the greatest lyric writers in history!

Ages: 10–13

Surfacing

• Instructor: Jennifer Hudak [ bio ]
• Ages: 10–13
• August 19–23, Afternoons, 1–4 p.m.

Our lives are filled with stories, pictures, and ideas. The fun part is writing them down!

This class will help you get your pens moving so that you can bring out your inner writer. By looking at the world around us, we'll learn how to generate ideas—and how to use the ideas we already have.

• Do you have a story to tell?
• A poem to write?
• Is it:
  • Funny?
  • Sad?
  • Absurd?
  • Mysterious?
• Is it as long as a book?
• Does it rhyme?
• Does it sing?

Is it about a far-away place in a long-ago time, or is it all about YOU? In this class we will dive into your imagination, find the biggest wave, and allow it to take us to unknown shores.

Whether you're learning more about your inner storyteller, or just starting out, come and get creative—and start writing!

Ages: 10–15

Write Yourself Into History (Second week of two, All Day)

• Instructors:
  • Camy Sorbello [ bio ]
  • Geoffrey Hale [ bio ]
• Guest Writer: Miriam Grace Monfredo [ bio ]
• Ages: 10–15
• Full Day: 9 a.m.–4 p.m, two weeks, August 12–16 & August 19–23
• $390 General Public / $360 Writers & Books or Strong Museum members

You have read yourself into history by reading and identifying with novels about young people involved in the great and small moments in history. Here is a chance to WRITE yourself into history!

This two-week workshop based on Strong Museum's collections and resources, will go behind the scenes at Strong Museum, the Susan B. Anthony House  and other walking tours of local historical sites to connect learning about history and historical artifacts to creative writing. The workshop will focus on Rochester in the period between 1850 and the outbreak of the Civil War: a booming local economy and culture, the women's rights movement, abolition and the underground railroad, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.

Strong Museum artifacts such as household items, toys, music and artwork will be used to evoke the time period and give some indication of how people lived, while letters and diaries will help you better understand the historical time period through the eyes of the people who actually experienced them. You will also role play through historical scenes to get their flavor.

Fiction writer Camy Sorbello will work with students on developing characters, setting and plot. All students will read North Star Conspiracy by Miriam Grace Monfredo and have an opportunity to ask her questions about her techniques. Biographers will also give guest appearances. Enrolled students will receive a list of other suggested readings prior to the workshop. We will collect scenes from each story for a book published at the end.

And, oh yeah… we will horse around a bit at the Strong Museum!

Ages: 13–18

Intersections: Where Poetry Meets Art

• Instructors:
  • Glenn Graver [ bio ]
  • M.J. Iuppa  [bio ]
• Ages: 13–18
• Mornings, 9 a.m.–Noon, August 19–23

Intersections is a journey into the exploration of word and image, and how the two are connected.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to create and illustrate poems (with drawings, collages or both) and house this new work in a chap book of your own design. Covers for the chap book will be "manipulated" Polaroid SX-70 photographs you create.

Please bring a "treasure box" of items which represent your dreams, hopes—all that is special to you! The things in your box will be a prompt for writing and may create a still life for drawing or photographing.

Intersections will prove a productive workshop for your creative mind!

Teen Slam Team

• Instructor: Reenah Golden [ bio ]
• Ages: 13–18
• Afternoons, 1–4 p.m., August 19–23

Participants will be introduced to and study the art of spoken word and "slam." Slam poetry is poetry spoken and performed in a variety of crowd-pleasing formats.

A series of pieces will be shared by the instructor along with video excerpts from professional slam poets from the famous Nuyorican Café and Def Poetry Slam. During the course of the workshop each student will develop their own original piece or personal adaptation of an existing text using the group's feedback and encouragement.

Our slam team will then take it on the road in September and perform in a live Slam!

Whether you were born to slam or just want to put more life into your presentation skills, we will be on your team!

Ages: High School

Writing the College Admissions Essay I

• Instructor: Ken Wilson [ bio ]
• Ages: High School
• Mornings, 9 a.m.–Noon. August 19–23

Learn to write impressive essays for admission applications, the kind that wow admissions officers by what you say and how you say it, that advertise you: creative, curious, intelligent, hard-working and involved.

Bring any actual questions from college applications.

We will have an admissions officer look at your essays and give you feedback.

Short, Short Fiction

• Instructor: Sarah Freligh [ bio ]
• Ages: High School
• Afternoons, 1–4 p.m., August 19–23

Sudden fiction, flash fiction, the short, short story—less is often more when it comes reading and writing very short stories of 250–750 words.

In this five-day workshop, we'll learn about the ingredients that combine to create a tantalizing short-short—character, setting and story—and concoct our own creations from guided exercises designed to evoke and provoke our imaginations.

We'll end the class with a reading and celebration providing plenty of food… for thought and otherwise!

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