***Student names have been changed to protect their privacy.***

From Becky Kaiser, North Summer Camp site manager

While many people were sunk deep in the lethargic, hotter-than-hot Austin summer, the young authors who participated in Badgerdog's Creative Writing Summer Camp were teeming with rivers and reservoirs of colorful creativity. Their only tools were a blank notebook, a pen, and an expert guide to lead them through the labyrinth of their imagination. 

The result? Magic. The quality and quantity of work these young writers produced within a three-week time span was astounding, and even more astounding was their enthusiasm. It was incredible to watch each classroom become a small community of writers—supporting each other, sharing criticisms and feedback, thrilled at the discovery of creation, and empowered by the knowledge that people were interested in reading their work. Whether it was writing an elegant poem describing the aromatic beauty of a magnolia tree in bloom or an extensive saga of lost love, these young writers' capacities and willingness to work were almost unfathomable to my "grown-up" mind.

Despite some of the kids' reluctance, at first, to spend a good chunk of summer writing (ugh!), everyone quickly discovered the difference between writing for a teacher and writing for yourself. In fact, one of the hardest parts of my job was getting kids to put down their pencils and get out the door at five o'clock. Inevitably, at the end of each day there was someone scribbling away furiously in their journals, while he or she sat and waited for a parent to arrive. I distinctly remember one day when a young boy walked into his classroom at the beginning of camp and was instantly mobbed by the rest of his workshop. They all wanted to know what happened next in the adventure story he'd been working on nightly.

When it was all said and done, I believe Creative Writing Summer Camp was a remarkably empowering and inspiring experience for all. The proof was in the faces of the student writers, the instructors, and the parents each day.  At the site reading, as kids read their work aloud to an audience of friends, family, and peers, the sensation that emanated from everyone involved could only be described as the very purest form of pride.
 
 

From Anastasia Kolendo, Dobie Middle School workshop:

After winning the Valentine’s Day poetry contest in the spring, Mario, sixth grade, started writing several poems a day. His teachers asked him to autograph their Valentine’s Day cards, and he said that he felt so famous that he kept expecting paparazzi to start jumping out at him from around the school’s corners.

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Daniel, seventh grade, made fun of his fellow writers so egregiously during his first few days in the program that I told him he had to choose between treating his classmates with empathy and leaving. He said he wanted to be a comedian, and, admittedly, his mockery of the other students did demonstrate a certain gift for and love of language. Nonetheless, he chose to leave and not to return for weeks. When he did, he was ready for serious writing. The piece he ended up producing and sharing in part at the student reading was about close relatives who were brutally murdered in the drug cartel war in Mexico. The workshop was his first opportunity to confront and analyze the impact of these deaths and his witnessing of one of them on his life.

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Iris, seventh grade, was at first reluctant to revise her work in response to feedback and seemed dubious of her teacher’s slight Russian accent (in a discussion about theater, she characterized accents as “annoying”). But halfway into the semester, she surprised me by working through several classes to revise and polish three pieces for publication that are some of the best writing we published from Dobie. By the end of the year, she was game to try a Russian accent while reading Sybil Rosen’s “Duet for Bear and a Dog.” When she returned to Badgerdog at the end of the spring 2009 semester, she took on a leadership role in the workshop, helping the younger students with some of the prompts and serving as an advocate for the value of polishing one’s work.

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