“Summer Teen Prequel”: July 1st – July 29th, 2023 Saturday 9:30am-11:30am PST

This 5-week creative writing class will show your kids how to put fun back into writing. How focusing on the creative process, instead of being pressured by story and product, is one of the key elements to writing. This class will open your kids up the magic of the creative process. We will be learning the world famous, “DON’T THINK, SEE” technique. We will be doing journal entry style writing. We call it a journal entry because it’s the least threatening approach to writing, compared to more traditional writing classes which focus on addressing prompts. Your kids are creative enough, and in Method Writing we seek to bring out that creativity in an organic way. Your kids will also learn how to face ‘the blank page’ without that fear and dread.

We will focus on voice — writing in an authentic voice and sounding like yourself, or as we say in the adult class: “writing like you talk”— because it’s the voice that hooks the reader. Your kids will learn how to create cinematic scenes within their journal entries, using the concept of  “breaking up the set”. Breaking up the set, is where your kids writing becomes like a movie in the reader’s mind. They will also learn how to create compelling scenes and show character through writing good dialogue. Lastly, your kids will learn the four components that all writing is built upon: NARRATIVE ACTION, COMMENTARY, DESCRIPTION and DIALOGUE.

Some of your kids might have studied with me one-on-one and understand some of the basic Method Writing concepts, but in this new 5 week class we will all be on the same page. This class will also give your kids the benefit of being among like-minded fellow artists, poets and writers. They will experience reading their pieces in front of other fellow writers (on zoom). They will learn how to give and receive constructive feedback. Most classes don’t offer this level of peer to peer workshopping. Method Writing is an amazing tool for life, and your kids will carry these skills with them into whatever they do in life and academic pursuit. I am looking forward to working with your kids, facilitating young poets and writers working together, and fostering their creative process. I hope your kids can join us.