San Diego Area Writing Project

Young Writers Camp NewsletterJuly 24, 2015

Lesly Easson, Kerry Ojeda, Katie Ward, and Kira Nolan

Campers and teachers in our group kicked off the first week with an allit-eration activity to introduce themselves to their new writing community. Ms. Lesly Easson, Ms. Kerry Ojeda, Miss Katie Ward, and Miss Kira Nolan have been busy teaching their students about writing through the use of mentor texts, which provide excellent models for writing. After listening to the books Hailstones and Halibut Bones and The Black Book of Colors (in which a visu-ally impaired boy describes colors), the students went out in the garden with magnifying glasses to investigate color. After being inspired by this activity, our young writers wrote their very own color poems.

Another focus this week has been on how great writers paint pictures with their words. The students are learning that they can achieve this through the use of sensory language and thought-ful detail. The students wrote about a special place, created descriptions of monsters, and worked with similes and metaphors to create incredible images with words. It was interesting to see and hear about the wide range of

places that were important to each of the students and the various ways in which they recreated those places us-ing detailed descriptive writing.

Other favorite activities this week have been creating a super hero and attach-ing a story to it, with special attention to the back-story and character devel-opment. The students also wrote how to pieces that consisted of anything from learning how to take care of guinea pigs to how to do division in math. We have very creative campers!

We also had guest speaker Judy Leff speak to the class from a writers point of view about celebrating the ordinary. The week ended with a field trip to the beach, working with observation, and a lesson on writing a nonfiction piece. Next week, the campers will work on persuasive/opinion writing, continue with writing response groups, and much more. We are looking forward to seeing all of you at Barnes & Noble on Thursday evening, and here for parent day on Friday morning!

YWC campers enjoyed an enriching first week filled with a variety of engaging writing experiences. We know that you have already heard about many of the activities in your own childs classroom. We thought that you might also enjoy reading about the events happening throughout camp. This newsletter is filled with a few highlights from each group.

You are invited to our sharing celebra-tion open microphone reading at Barnes and Noble in Encinitas on July 30th at 6:00 p.m. Dont forget that you are also invited to final day classroom festivities on Friday, July 31st from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Camp will conclude im-mediately following classroom visits at 10:30 a.m. that morning.

Margaret Epperson, Lisa Madanat, Izzie Ojeda, and Arianna Young

Getting to know yougetting to know all about you. This song resonates as a depiction of our first few days of camp together.

Through a variety of writing tech-niques, weve created a writing com-munity that promotes trust, new friendships, a sharing of ideas, and help for all. We started with an activity where the students partnered up, interviewed each other, sorted answers using a Venn Diagram, and wrote a paragragh introducing their new friends. We concluded with oral introductions of our partners. The campers practiced their speaking skills and added to the community feel. Another technique we learned was how to create an infographic. First we stud-ied a mentor text from the magazine Storyworks. After carefully noticing the illustrations and writing used in the infographic, the students then created their own. We finished up with a gal-lery walk to view what other campers wrote. Campers also wrote pieces that scraped their hearts, mystery sto-ries inspired by the photograghs and captions from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. They also had a look at leg-ends using animal characteristics. Sprinkled amongst these activities, campers worked on how to revise in groups, use dialogue effectively, and strengthen a piece with properly placed colons. Were looking forward to a second week filled with field trips, descriptive poetry, and an opinion piece about a donut. We are blessed with a creative, diligent group of young writerswe cant wait to see what they will come up with next!

Upcoming YWC Activities

July 28- Anthology cover contest submissions due by 9:00 a.m.

July 29 - Anthology pieces due by 9:00 a.m.

July 30 - Writing About Writing contest entries due by 12:00 p.m.

July 30 - Sharing celebration (open microphone) and fundraiser event at Barnes and Noble in Encinitas at 6:00 p.m.

July 31 - Families are invited to class-room celebrations from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Camp ends at 10:30 a.m. on the final day.

Trish Dentremont, Scott Leonard, Skye Easson, and Maddie Ho

Some people begin their day with jump-ing jacks, others read the newspaper, many drink a strong cup of coffee. Here at YWC, we begin our day with sacred writing time. This is when we all we sit in a circle and quietly write to music. After about fifteen minutes, pencils stop moving, and we turn the music off. The magic begins as authors share what they have written with the whole group. Sharing has become a bit contagious, and more and more of our authors are giving voice to their writing by sharing it. This is such a wonderful way to start our morning at camp!

If you were to read the story of our group, you would discover a cast of characters ranging from mindful math-ematicians, jovial jokesters, active ath-letes, quiet questioners, and boisterous bibliophiles. Could you guess that our theme for camp is characterization? Weve shared our own character traits. Weve analyzed the character traits of popular villains, and weve considered how narratives change depending upon which character tells a story. Scott gave a fantastic reading of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Come to find out, the wolf was falsely accused of his crimes!

We have already seen so much growth in this group, not only as individual writers, but also as members of a whole. We have seen old friendships rekindled and new friendships blossom with writing as a catalyst for connec-tion. The campers in this newfound community have become more confi-dent in their writing abilities and are also becoming more willing to share their work with peers during writing response groups. Here in Cardiff, the excitement to write radiates from with-in every writer, and with an abundance of writing styles explored, they have all found a niche where they feel comfort-able writing.

Our day at writing camp ends with writing response groups, or WRGs. The students, who have been working hard all morning on honing character devel-opment, practicing their figurative lan-guage, and writing from different points of view, get a chance to share their creativity in a small and safe group setting. Writing response group time is when we get the privilege of hearing even the most quiet students share their awesome and unique ideas.

Writing response groups help open up our more reluctant students, and they provide opportunities for encourage-ment and constructive feedback from peers. Although its only the first week of camp, many of our students already get excited about writing response groups and some have started to request even more time to share their stories!

Were looking forward to using our field trips to VGs Donuts, the statue of the Cardiff Kook, and Seaside Mar-ket Plaza as inspiration for character development. As we walk to our various destinations, we will make observations of the characters we see along the way, and then we will take the time to write, and write, and write.

Inspired by Special Guest Judy Leff

An Excerpt from Nature by Lauren Lakin

Every time you look, new life appears: a bee, a butterfly, a moth! Could it be, I asked: Was it a fly or a beetle? It was a metallic blue as deep as the ocean waters. Bees flying around with pollen on on their fragile little legs, like yellow orange leg warmers.

Captureby Fenna Candy

Capture the sweet, sweet smell of the leaves,hanging off, hanging off, hanging off trees.Feel the chill of the breeze and take in the vibrance of the the floweres and bees,vibrance of, vibrance offlowers and bees.Hear, hear, hear the birds sing,sing to the tune,the tune of the wind.Capture the sweet, sweet smell of the leaves,hanging off, hanging off,hanging off trees.

An excerpt from StrawberriesBy Audrey Song

My feet are tangled in the vines, swirl-ing in the wind. Strawberries are grow-ing. The leaves protect them from the strong breeze and shade them from the sun.... Tiny little strawberries are hid-ing from the real world. A little stump is near the strawberry patch. When I tap my magic wand (my pencil) it makes a beautiful sound...nature.