Young Writers Studio: Exploring the Craft of Writing (Students entering Grades 6, 7, 8, 9) – Gifted Summer Program, July 2025

About Course

In this course, young writers find their voice. Whether your child is a hesitant beginner or an eager storyteller, these sessions will nurture confidence, creativity, and craft—helping each writer explore language, play with form, and express ideas with power and clarity.

Reading and writing for pleasure—once a natural part of growing up—are increasingly displaced by digital distractions. Young Writers Studio: Exploring the Craft of Writing offers children a space to return to the joy of language and explore its possibilities on the page.

Rooted in the approach developed by Donald Graves, widely regarded as the ‘father of writing education’, this course introduces young writers to a variety of writing strategies through engaging mini-lessons. Each session helps students choose meaningful topics, identify their audience and purpose, and learn how to make intentional choices as writers. The focus is not just on writing well, but on writing with agency.

The course explores a range of forms—poetry, personal description, and other imaginative exercises—to build creativity, vocabulary, and fluency. Writers will engage with sensory language to craft vivid short passages and experiment with poetic structures such as Haikus and Cinquains, which challenge them to distill meaning into rhythm and syllables.

Designed to meet each child where they are, the workshop encourages the reluctant writer to discover the joy of expression, and offers new challenges and forms to the already confident one. Above all, it fosters independence, ownership, and delight in writing.

The course culminates in a shared publication, celebrating each participant’s voice. You can read one such outcome—The Fifth Estate, a student-run online newspaper—here.
And here’s a powerful piece by a former Grade 9 student (Aashaya), written in response to how music helps her find balance:

I think I’m ready again,

I say with all my might,

Things may not have changed,

But I see them in a different light.

The music gave me the power,

To stand tall when things weren’t right,

And only now can I go back,

For round two of this fight.

As I stand up on two feet,

The music plays in my head,

And this time I’m not weak,

I’m powerful instead.

I got back up,

After I fell and I bled,

And I’ll have my music with me,

If I ever fall, on the rocky path ahead.

Past participants have described the experience as eye-opening:

• “I used to write whatever came to mind… now I question the credibility and think before I write.”
• “I never attempted to write before, and this was very challenging — but I surprised myself.”
• “I learnt how to convert emotions into words.”
• “I found how difficult it is to bring elegance and clarity to what we say.”