Creative Writing Summer Camp

Creative writing is one of my very favorite things to do! 

In this week-long camp, we will each write a creative story to share with the group. Writing a whole story might seem hard, but we are going to work together to make it happen. 

Using the live, video chat feature of Outschool we will write and expand upon our stories to make them a piece we can each be proud of. 

On the first day of camp, we will brainstorm ideas for our stories and talk about writing a great lead that will hook your reader in! This will include looking at the hook from several books. We will write our leads and share them as a class. For homework, it will be your turn to finish the bare bones of your story giving it a beginning, middle, and end. 

On the second day of camp, we will practice expanding sentences by adding sensory details to the writing we already have. We will expand a sentence or two together, then it will be time for you to do it on your own. For homework, you will choose at least one sentence from each paragraph of your story to expand. 

On the third day of camp, we will talk about dead words and using a thesaurus to get rid of them. You will help me to find the dead words in my story and replace them with more lively words. We will also share our stories so far and get feedback from fellow campers. For homework, you will go through your story and see if you have dead words that need to be replaced. 

On the fourth day of camp, we will learn about showing, not telling. We will examine our writing and determine what sentences we could change to show the reader what we are talking about, instead of just telling them. After practicing a few sentences together, it will be your homework to show, not tell in your own story for homework. 

On the final day of camp, we will come together for a writers' celebration. We will share our stories and give one another feedback on our writing. After that, we will talk about what kind of stories we want to write next. If time allows, we will work together to write a collective story and use our skills from throughout the week to make it more detailed!