Creative Writing: Tell Your Stories -
Personal Essays

This writing camp uses words to capture stories and emotions. Students will use Sensory images and literary devices to explore character, setting, dialogue, and narrative. Fun activities interwoven into the workshop will guide students through observing details and narrating feelings and experiences. They will learn tried and true techniques while developing their own voice and style. Students will study the works of great authors, learn stylistic literary methods, and begin composing their own works.

From personal essays to third person narratives, students will learn how to tell true stories using use the traditional tools of fiction and poetry.  Special emphasis will be placed on evocative imagery and diction. By reading the work of some accomplished nonfiction writers, students will learn about the intersection of personal experience and journalistic reporting. Considering how a writer’s voice and experiences shape a text, students will assess the freedoms and constraints of creative nonfiction by reading and discussing the work of writers who experiment with the boundaries of the genre.

In addition to daily reading and writing exercises, students will complete several major writing projects. They experiment with literary elements, techniques for organizing essays, creating meaningful transitions, and beginning and ending their works effectively. Students will leave the course with a clearer sense of audience and their own authorial voices, as well as a deeper understanding of themselves.
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This camp will build valuable writing skills that students can apply in essays they write in the future, such as scholarship or college application essays. Writing Stories is a good prep course for this one (not a pre-requisite though).
Grouped by (3rd – 5th Grade, 6th – 10th Grade)

This camp will be grouped  by grade levels: 3rd -5th, 6th -10th

Dates: 7/25/16 - 7/29/16
Time: 9:00 – 5:00 pm
Location: The Pursuit Church (Swerve Room) at 6151 N Discovery Way, Boise, ID 83713 (Next to the West YMCA)