NVWP » Young Writers and Families

The Privilege of Writing: A Look Inside the NVWP’s Young Writers’ Workshops

NVWP — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:18:38 +0000

For almost 24 years, The Northern Virginia Writing Project has worked with young writers through our Student Summer Institute and our Saturday Workshop Series. Aimed at interested students and motivated writers in grades 4-12 , workshops are run by NVWP Teacher Consultants, some of the best teachers in Northern Virginia. Class size is small, with a ratio of twelve students to one Teacher Consultant. The workshops run from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Students choose the workshop topics that interest them the most from a wide variety of offerings including: Art & Nature Writing, Visualization, Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction Stories, Writing from Personal Experience, Theater Sports, Mystery Stories, Scriptwriting, Poetry, and Dialogue and Characterization.

This past November GMU English Major and NVWP staff member Deborah Krat visited two of our Fall Saturday workshops to find out what the buzz is all about.

The Privilege of Writing

By Deborah Krat, NVWP Staff

As I walked into the Visualization workshop, the teacher consultant, Jennifer Carter-Wharton, asked the students, “What is Visualization?” The students responded with impressive answers such as, “Writing through our senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, touch), and to create imagery for the reader.” In the beginning, the students seemed a bit timid and shy at first when warming up, hoping to not give the wrong answer, but there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to writing. It is the writer’s opinion and imagination that keeps the writing process going, thus allowing the young writers to share their stories by the end of the session.

As a warm-up exercise, Jennifer asked the students to write a story, poem, song, etc. using their senses while looking at New York City pictures on postcards for 20 minutes. When the TC informed the students, “Okay, start wrapping it up,” I could hear the students’ pens rapidly gliding across the pages, figuring out the perfect ending to a great story. Their faces frightened with fear of reading out-loud, their minds rapidly flowing with thoughts about their stories mirroring these images, and the constant turning of fully written crinkled pages made Jennifer’s face light up with a bright smile. These students were determined writers.

While observing Jennifer’s session, a sixth-grader sitting to my right was writing a story about a woman walking in Central Park and observing the wintry mix around her. A girl to my left had a picture of a horse carriage in Central Park, but was inspired to write about a gravesite, imagining the carriage parked in front of one. A middle-school-aged boy wrote about a man looking at and playing with a sailboat, using descriptive imagery describing what the man and the sailboat looked like. A high school girl wrote about a person overlooking a bridge in Central Park and described the scene as a person looking back on their childhood when they used to walk that bridge. All these imaginative descriptions made me feel like I was walking around Central Park in the middle of winter.

For the remaining time of the session, Jennifer asked them to write a story based on different post-card pictures, a set of “The Sandman” post cards. These images added more depth and color, but displayed a darker tone to the characters the artist used. The students liked these images more because they were colorful and interesting to look at. Some students used the same character from their previous activity in this one, but added a darker twist to their personalities using these images. One student said, “I wrote my image based on a horror story cliché, like the person is walking through a midnight forest. I don’t usually write about dark stuff. I usually write about blind people, so that’s why I use the sense sight more in my stories.”

This Young Writers’ session transported me back to my freshman year at Lake Braddock Secondary School where I realized I wanted to be a writer. I knew after taking my first high school English class I wanted to become an English major and pursue a career in writing and publishing. I remember how excited I was getting my thoughts, emotions, and imagination down on paper. I felt like I could write about anything and everything because there was no right or wrong answer when it comes to writing.

Throughout high school, I always looked forward to attending my English classes because they were the most exciting for me while being in school. I couldn’t wait to meet my new teacher every year, read the different material they planned for the curriculum, and also listen to what my peers wrote in each class. After taking various English classes, I was determined to push myself and take AP English my senior year, which is the Advanced Placement English class for high school students. This helped perfect my reading and writing skills further because of the amount of material we had to read and understand.

As a senior college student at George Mason University, I was surprised and intrigued by the students’ responses because of how smart and quick to the point they were. In addition, hearing these types of visualizations wowed me because of how creative they were, especially from young students. I was glad that I had the privilege of sitting in on these workshops and hearing what young students write about, because they were all creative and imaginative.

Today, college and beginning professional writers still struggle to get their voice heard, read in front of an audience, and perfect their writing to the best of their ability. These young writers already have an advantage by getting their voices heard at the start of their educational careers. It’s also beneficial for these young writers to take advantage of the writing centers in their elementary, middle, and high schools because a writing center is there for the students to more fully comprehend the English language and improve their grammar and writing skills. The writing center tutors and other teachers will work one-on-one with these students until their writing is clear and concise. Knowing the resources I had when I was in elementary and middle school, I wish I had taken more advantage of them. Learning is easier and fun to understand because of the advanced technology we have today, which these young writers will perfect in the next 5-10 years.

The Northern Virginia Writing Project (NVWP) truly is a spectacular organization for young writers and teachers, and it continues to strive for every child’s success in the future. As a college student, I envy these young students for taking advantage of this program because it strengthens their writing skills at an early age. I wish I knew about the Northern Virginia Writing Project when I was in elementary school because it would have made English courses and writing workshops that much easier and more fun for me. According to the NVWP website, “The mission of the Northern Virginia Writing Project is to improve writing instruction, writing practice, and learning at all educational levels.” This proves anyone at any age can improve their writing skills and make learning a lot easier and more fun. These students are truly young professional writers.

Click here for more information or to register for our Spring 2012 Young Writers’ Workshops.

NVWP Announces Dates for Spring 2012 Young Writers’ Workshops

NVWP — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:25:16 +0000

Mark your calendars and save the dates for the NVWP’s 2012 Young Writers’ Workshops! This spring we will be hosting four workshops: on February 25, March 3, April 14, and April 21. Interested students in grades 4-12 may attend. On line registration will be available in early January. To receive the latest information from the NVWP please subscribe to our RSS feed and our monthly electronic newsletter.

Young Writers’ Workshops are one-day writing workshops that are held in the fall and in the spring on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University. Workshops run on Saturdays from 9 am-1pm and are taught by NVWP Teacher Consultants, some of the best teachers in Northern Virginia.

Class size is small, with a ratio of 12 students to 1 Teacher Consultant
Students choose the workshop topics which interest them most
Workshops provide an encouraging and creative environment and students are invited to share their work with their peers

Workshop topics include: Art & Nature Writing, Visualization, Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction Stories, Writing from Personal Experience, Theater Sports, Mystery Stories, Scriptwriting, Poetry, and Dialogue and Characterization.

Students in grades 10-12 may take College Application Essay Writing, an intensive workshop designed to help them write truly effective college application essays.

Who should attend: Interested and motivated writers in grades 4-12.

Cost: $60

Additional Workshops
the following workshops are held on the same days as the Young Writers’ Workshops

Free For Parents
Parents are invited to attend a discussion on writing as a family. This discussion is free of charge.

Paid Parents’ Workshop
Parents have the opportunity to participate in a writing workshop led by NVWP Teacher Consultants. Topics of these workshops vary.
Cost: $20/parent

Family Writers’ Workshop
As a family, writers learn about how to create writer nights, preserve writing, and join in the fun of keeping the writing going from week to week. Grade K-4 sibling family members are welcome. Cost: $20/family

Falling for the Story Volume IX: An Anthology of Exemplary Writing

NVWP — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:43:26 +0000

Table of Contents

Falling for the Story Front Matter

Section I: Elementary

Fiction

Poetry

Non-Fiction

Section II: Secondary

Fiction

Poetry

Non-Fiction

Contributors’ Notes and Teachers

An Introduction to Volume IX of Falling for the Story

By Dr. Paul Rogers, NVWP Director

“Words, in my humble opinion, are the most inexhaustible form of magic.” ~ Professor Albus Dumbledore

Falling for the Story celebrates the power of writers and writing. In its pages we celebrate the power of words, ideas, and language to reshape our own thinking and to change the minds of others. We celebrate stories, poems, essays, and letters as an essential way of making sense of the world. We celebrate the teachers who know that real learning extends far beyond what can be measured on a test. Most of all, we celebrate the creative minds, resilient hearts, and complex lives of the young writers who have inscribed in these pages their visions for us to read and reread.

The writing in this volume comes from students whose teachers are Teacher Consultants with the Northern Virginia Writing Project, a teacher-led organization dedicated to making the power of writing available to all. However, even though Falling for the Story has a very direct connection to classrooms, the writing in its pages serves, in fact, as an antidote to the deeply misguided thinking that is afflicting our entire educational system today. This test-driven thinking equates and reduces learning to what can be measured on a multiple choice test, and frames writing as merely a tool of assessment rather than a powerful tool of learning, expression, and communication that is essential to full participation in 21st century life. The authors, teachers, and editors of this volume remind us that when given freedom, support, and encouragement, young writers (and, indeed all of us) are capable of expressing through the written word the full range of human experience and emotion, and producing tremendous feats of creativity and contribution.

The authors of Falling for the Story have blended ideas, craft, and imagination for purposes that extend far beyond a grade. We are not reading to assess; instead, we read to enjoy and to learn. When we do, we are rewarded with experience, laughter, and fresh understandings of some of the most difficult issues we all face today: death, drug abuse, divorce, bigotry, schizophrenia, bullying, cancer, natural disasters, and the human destruction of our environment, to name just a few. Woven into these unflinching looks at difficult issues we also find compelling accounts of personal growth, transformation, friendship, courage, love, and reconciliation. These young writers have invited us to look closer at what surrounds us, and to see modern life through their eyes. Their words serve as a powerful reminder that young people have so much to give, not in the future, but now.

I offer my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to all of the authors, teachers, reviewers, editors, and staff that helped bring together this year’s Falling for the Story. Thank you for reminding us of the inexhaustible power available to us through writing.

A limited number of print copies of Falling for the Story 2011, Volume IX are still available in print for $10.00. If you would be interested in ordering a copy please contact the NVWP office contact@nvwp.org

Writing Contest: Creating Solutions to the Challenges Children Face Today

NVWP — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:21:26 +0000

“Garbage City” within the slums of Cairo. (Photograph taken August 2010 by Mike Slagter, Creative Commons, Flickr)

The NVWP is excited to share with you an opportunity for all high school students, currently enrolled in 9th through 12th grades, attending public or private schools to participate in an International Writing Contest. The topic of the contest, the awards, and program objectives are sure to resonate with Teacher Consultants and students, as Tom Gage, founder of the Redwood Writing Project, has helped to organize this event with the conference sponsors the Gulen Institute.

The topic of the contest is: “Creating solutions to the challenges children face today”

Awards for Students

The Awards Ceremony takes place at the United Nations. All winners who ranked from 1^st place to 30^th place will be awarded a sponsored excursion to Washington, D.C. and New York City. In addition to participating in the award ceremony, students will have the opportunity to meet members of the U.S. Congress, participate in discussions, visit local university and think-tank organizations, and enjoy tourist attractions in Washington, D.C. and New York City. The awards ceremony is tentatively scheduled for May. You can view a video of last year’s event at http://news.ebru.tv/gulen-institute-honor-world-youth-in-washington-dc

1^st place	3,000 USD + 4-day excursion
2^nd place	2,000 USD + 4-day excursion
3^rd place	1,000 USD + 4-day excursion
4^th - 15^th place:	300 USD + 4-day excursion
16^th – 30^th place:	4-day excursion

ESSAY REQUIREMENTS

Essays must:
• Be written in English
• Be original, unpublished, and written entirely by student
• Contain student’s original opinions and recommendations based on research
• Be at least 1,500 words in length but no more than 2,000 (Citations and bibliography are not included in the word count)
• Be typed, double-spaced with margins: left: 1.5″, right: 1″, top: 1″, bottom: 1″, page-numbered
• Include a bibliography
• Comply with standards regarding citations and bibliography

January 31, 2012: Deadline for the submission of essays

ADDRESSING THE TOPIC

1. Choosing the challenges
Choose two or three challenges listed below that you believe to be among the worst affecting today’s children.

•    Violence
•    Poverty
•    Lack of access to Education
•    Child Neglect
•    Child Labor
•    Trafficking and Slavery
•    Drug Abuse
•    Health and Nutrition
•    Gender Inequality

2. Addressing the challenges
After accounting for each challenge you have chosen:
•    Explain why you have chosen these challenges
•    Explain how these challenges interact and how they affect children’s life
•    Provide possible causes
•    Provide potential means that realistically overcome these challenges

For further information please visit: http://www.gulenyouthplatform.org

If you have questions please contact Michelle Wheatley – Gulen Institute Youth Platform Coordinator at youthplatform@guleninstitute.org

Sincerely,

The NVWP Staff

*The Gulen Institute is among many service organizations inspired by the writings of F. Gulen, poet, philosopher, theologian, and winner of the 2011 Peace Award of the EastWest Institute of New York. http://www.guleninstitute.org/

Student Writers Take Center Stage at Annual Fall for the Book Festival

NVWP — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:07:56 +0000

Although the leaves were only beginning to turn colors and make their descent, many young writers came together at George Mason University’s annual Fall for Book Festival on September 18 to read and celebrate their work from our very own student literary anthology, Falling for the Story.

Ten students moved the audience with their poetry, nonfiction, and fiction pieces. This year’s event was held at Old Town Hall in Fairfax, and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more perfect with its historical background and warm, stately ambience. Virginia history books and old mysteries lined the library shelves, and our students came ready to impress us with their poise, grace, articulation, and enthusiasm.

If you have not attended one of our readings before, please make a point to come out next year! Our student reading is generally the kick-off event for the festival.

We are thrilled with our 2011 edition of Falling for the Story and are extremely grateful to those who made this publication possible: teacher consultants, our readers, our support staff, our sponsors, our cover artist, and our director!

Each year, we receive approximately 200 submissions to our anthology, and we accept roughly 40% of these. A select few students are then asked to read their works to an audience of parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and Fall for the Book attendees. To be involved with a publication of this caliber is an honor, and every year we walk away from the student reading refreshed, renewed, and filled with pride. We hope that if you have not previously submitted student work to the anthology, you will consider doing so this year.

Becoming a published author is absolutely life changing for a child, and the student reading is a further affirmation of this.

One special moment arose during the program when Sarah Matthews of Commonwealth Governor’s School: Spotsylvania High School read her poem entitled, “A Soldier’s Poem.” The next reader approached the podium and concisely expressed the sentiments of everyone in the room when she said the previous reading “gave [her] chills.” We have included it below for your enjoyment.

Hilarie Jennings & Charlotte Foster
Co-editors, Falling for the Story

A Soldier’s Poem

Sarah Matthews

I stand my watch in silence

Between the steel-grey guns

Staring at the nothingness

Twixt myself and the setting sun

The stillness stands eternal

Till broken by a cry

A hawk- but still it sounds like

The comrades I’ve seen die

And as I stand in twilight

A flag above my head

The only thing that I still trust

The white and blue and red

I think about the convoy

And the chaos in the town

A horrifying memory

Etched in lights and smoke and sound

The shots from lonely buildings

Our fire in return

How the firefight continued

As the town began to burn

A child in a doorway

A gunshot in the air

Her terrified expression

And blood now soaks her hair

The corner that I crouched in

Away and out of sight

The paper that I saw and read

With barely any light

A thought I had not had yet

In this long and bloody war

A sentiment so widely shared

By the men who’d gone before

“What if we are wrong?”

And I, startled, caught my breath

If the blood but flowed for nothing

My heart quivered in my breast

I had not thought about it

Ever in that way

But now the thought beleaguers me

Every second of the day

If every man that I had killed

Was for an empty cause

If all the innocents had died

Because our thoughts were flawed

A thought I could not handle

And so I tried to hide

But there is no place to run to

When the monster lies inside

“What if we are wrong?”

As I’m standing at my post

A single word from me tonight

And a man becomes a ghost

I hide behind my uniform

A husk of what I was

From the world that slowly bleached me

Of life and thought and love

Slowly I’ve become a shell

Held only by my will

For the world but sees the glory

Not the many I have killed

Now I stand my watch in silence

Twixt the deadly, quiescent guns

And wonder if I’ll be here

When tomorrow’s sunset comes

If you are interested in ordering a copy of the 2011 Falling for the Story Anthology, we have a few more books for sale. Please contact Sara Duval in the NVWP office for more information.

Students of NVWP TCs to Read Original Works at Annual Fall for the Book Festival

NVWP — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:24:33 +0000

A hallmark of each year’s Fall for the Book festival, the annual Falling for the Story event features future literary stars — student writers sharing original works published in the Northern Virginia Writing Project’s Falling for the Story, a yearly collection of exemplary work from students of NVWP Teachers Consultants in elementary, middle, and high schools. Please join in this celebration of writers and writing to take place on Sunday, September 18th, 2011 from 12:00-1:15 in the Old Town Hall, 3999 University Drive, Fairfax, VA. The reading is sponsored by the Northern Virginia Writing Project.

Registration Now Open for Spring 2012 Young Writers’ Workshops at GMU

NVWP — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:23:34 +0000

About the Saturday Workshops

The Northern Virginia Writing Project provides one-day writing workshops for interested students and motivated writers in grades 5-12 in the fall and 4-12 in the spring. Workshops are run by NVWP Teacher Consultants, some of the best teachers in Northern Virginia. Class size is small, with a ratio of twelve students to one Teacher Consultant. The workshop runs from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.

Students may choose the workshop topics which interest them the most. In addition, students in grades 10-12 may choose to take College Application Essay Writing, an intensive workshop designed to help them write truly effective college application essays.

Examples of topics offered: Art & Nature Writing, Visualization, Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction Stories, Writing from Personal Experience, Theater Sports, Mystery Stories, Scriptwriting, Poetry, and Dialogue and Characterization.

REGISTER NOW!

Spring 2012 Workshop Dates:

February 25
March 3
April 14
April 21

Time: 9am – 1pm
Place: GMU, Fairfax Campus, Robinson Hall A & B
Cost: $60.00

Register Online: Click Here [new window]

Mail-in Registration: Download This Form [PDF]

Discussion Group for Parents, 11:50-1:00 PM:

At each workshop we convene a discussion group for parents. All are welcome. There is no cost to participate.

Paid Parents’ Workshop

In addition, we are offering parents the opportunity to participate in a writing workshop. These workshops take place between 10:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m. All are welcome. The cost is $20

2/25 Beginner Poetry or Advanced Poetry

3/13 Writing from Personal Experience or Writing and the Arts (Ekphrasis & Integration)

4/14 Poetry Revision/Follow Up

4/21 Prose Revision/Follow Up

New this Season! Family Writers’ Workshop

For those who join us in the morning, here’s an event for the afternoon. Take a little time to participate in the Family Writers’ Workshop following the Young Writers event. Students registered for the morning workshop and their siblings are eligible for this event with their parents. Here’s an opportunity to participate with your children and Teacher Consultants. As a family, writers will learn about how to create write nights, preserve writing, and join in the fun of keeping the writing going from week to week. Workshop costs $20.00 and will take place from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Grade K-4 sibling family members are also welcome! The cost is $20.00

Spread the Word

Download the Young Writers & Families Saturday Workshop Flyer

Student Summer Institute Honored!

NVWP — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:10:04 +0000

The Northern Virginia Writing Project’s annual Student Summer Institute has been selected from among more than 600 summer programs for inclusion in The Ultimate Guide to Summer Opportunities for Teens: 200 Programs that Prepare You for College Success.

The Ultimate Guide, published by Prufrock Press and available nationwide, details 200 exemplary summer opportunities in academic enrichment, fine arts, internships, paid positions, leadership, service, maths, sciences, and international travel and study.

NVWP’s Student Summer Institute is highlighted as an outstanding resource for talented, involved youth. We are proud to be listed among these exceptional programs.

For more information on this publication, please visit Prufrock Press, Inc.

Click here to purchase this publication from Amazon.com