Summer Writing Camps For Middle Schoolers

Summer Writing Camp (WriteNow!)

Every year we have summer writing camps featuring Write Now!® writing courses designed to improve students' skills in formal, informal, and creative writing.

The program is offered in two formats:

Intensive summer writing camps on our school campuses
Year-long weekly programs on other campuses

The goals of both formats is the same: (1) to help students acquire excellent writing skills and (2) to encourage a love of writing in students. To facilitate the second goal, it is important that writing not be viewed as a painful chore; the vast majority of students tell us that they enjoy the classes and would recommend that their friends take them.

The writing courses begin with a review of sentence structure to verify that the students' most basic skills are in place. We then move to the building blocks of all good writing: paragraphs. Using WriteNow!®'s copyrighted templates, students practice writing several different kinds of paragraphs: the classic five-sentence paragraph with a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a summary concluding sentence; variations on the classic that include both supporting and countering points; bullet-point paragraphs; and both introductory and concluding paragraphs. The third step is to proceed from writing strong paragraphs to combining them into outstanding essays and other literary forms.

All teachers are experienced Emerson Montessori staff members. Materials and exercises are designed and prepared by Charles D. Bernstein, Ph.D., executive director of the writing program and president of Early Learning Institute.

2021 Summer Writing Camps

The 2021 Summer Writing Camps will be, like last year, a little different than previous years. Due to COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, there will be 2 ways to attend: Online and In-Person. If you are wanting to attend in-person, you will need to apply for all 3 weeks as a package. The online program allows you to pick out the pieces a la carte.

Overview

July 12 – August 8

One subject is covered in each of the three one-week camps. They include:

Expository Writing —This program covers school-type assignments (reports, essays, written tests, analyses) and the skills necessary to organize, write, edit, and re-write them.
Creative Writing —This covers self-expressive writing through stories, plays, poems, and journals and the skills necessary to complete them.
Presentation Skills —The topic alternates every three years among mechanics, persuasion, and—this year—debate (the development of analytical and public speaking skills).

We provide a binder to each child with all the agendas, handouts, and excercises for the one-week program. The courses are led by long-time teachers, most with over 20 years at the school.

In-Person
Online

Students will bring their own lunches. The school will provide snacks in individual packages, that will be sanitized before they are distributed. Student may bring their own snacks, which must not be shared, in their lunch boxes.

If students have questions, they will log back on to Zoom and obtain assistance by means of the "hand" signal. Only half of their assignments will be reviewed by teachers, using fax or e-mail to submit them. Comments will be returned by teachers using the same means. The morning session will run from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon. The afternoon session will be from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM, with a 15-minute break around 2:30 every day.

The presentations and materials in the online format will be identical to the on-site version. The actual on-site teacher presentations will be broadcast. The movie segments will be broadcast via "share screen." Online students will then work on their assignments.