The Writing Workshop

(This course is targeted at children entering Grades 8, 9, 10 in 2020-21)

 The skills developed through creative writing workshops improve literacy abilities, encourage creative thinking and build self-esteem. With the onset of new-age technology, children are moving away from what was once a quintessential part of growing up- reading and writing for pleasure. 

This course is based on the approach developed by Donald Graves, considered to be the ‘father of writing education’. This approach introduces students to various strategies, and these are done via mini-lessons. During mini-lessons, teachers help writers choose topics, purposes, and audiences for their writing and offer suggestions to guide the writer's decision-making process.  The current course will focus on various types of writing to build creativity, vocabulary and the ability to work under constraints. 

Amongst a variety of activities, participants will learn to write poetry, short descriptive passages and other simple and enjoyable forms of writing. The primary aim during these sessions is to help the most reluctant writer to embrace writing, and to help a proficient writer find newer ways to express their ideas. Participants will write short descriptions involving various sensory details to convey a message about the world around us; sensorial writing is more engaging and effective. They will also write Haikus- seventeen syllable poems that describe a moment in time, and try their hand at Cinquains- a similar approach of using syllables to shape an idea into fullness.

A sampling of what occurs when writers gain independence in writing is demonstrated in the newspaper that the instructor’s students put together after a previous workshop: https://wearethefifthestate.wixsite.com/website