On my summer vacation .....
By Jeannette J. Lee / For The Somerville Journal/Thursday, August 7, 2003
Kids find writing camp is the hip place to be
On a cool, cloudless Thursday at Tufts University, students in the Writers'
Express program sat on benches and under trees, alone or in clusters,
heads bent over their journals. Every now and then, one of them would
ease off from scribbling and assume the contemplative-yet-fixed stare
of a writer straining to forge a brilliant chain of words.
It was the penultimate day of the session. Hailing from towns as far-flung as Quincy and Andover, the sixth- through ninth-graders had converged at Tufts by 8:30 every morning for the past two weeks to play sports, paint, bond with fellow campers and put their pens to work.
Writing camp may sound like a summer prison sentence mandated by parents, but most of the kids opted for Writers' Express over other activities. Many were veterans of the program, including Armani White, 12, of Jamaica Plain. "At first I was looking for a camp in biology, entymology or medieval stuff, but there were none," he said, "I like writing, too, so I came here."
Maayan Bar-Yan, 13, of Newton signed up because, he said, "I like the mixture of athletics with writing."
Part summer camp, part writers' workshop, the two-week sessions at Writers' Express blend activities like tennis, canoeing and overnights with lessons on grammar, avoiding cliches and crafting powerful sentences. During all activities, counselors pull individual kids aside to discuss their writing. "In this way, [the kids] learn that feedback is not threatening," said Debbie Reck, executive director and co-founder of Writers' Express.
" The key is to make writing feel like recreation," added Christine DiBuono, assistant director of Writers' Express. "High-engagement activities provoke strong emotions and opinions, which gives kids material to write about. Rock climbing is about writing and vice versa. It's all integrated."
A hike during a Writers' Express camping trip to southern Vermont inspired
Kiara Rodriguez, 11, of Somerville, to write a story about a waterfall,
which she described as "going from white to clear. The water was
cold, the rocks moist." Rodriguez, a Cummings School student, said
she applied to Writers' Express because "I love to write and read." The
petite 6th-grader nodded with enthusiasm when asked if she will return
next summer.
Anneke Reich, 11, of Cambridge shared a sentence inspired by swimming at camp. "Beams of light skittered across the water." Reich has always loved writing. Her new favorite word is "searing." Reich said, "It can mean heart-breaking or emotionally shattering. And it's a strong word. I like strong words."
Other campers had written their favorite words haphazardly in reds, blues, greens and pinks on an oversize piece of paper hanging in a classroom: "Intimate. Nonchalant, Potato. Discombobulated."
White said his pet word is " 'nonchalant' because it's a bigger, better word. Instead of saying 'I don't mind,' I'd rather say 'I'm feeling nonchalant.'"
A typical Writers' Express day opens with a writing drill. Counselors chalk a bland sentence on the blackboard. The students rewrite it by applying one of the Four Pillars of Writing - in this case "Showing-not-Telling" - the backbone of Writers' Express. In minutes, Tania Gaudin transformed the sentence "Squash is difficult" into "Oh man! Not this game again. As my anger started to build inside me, I pretended that the ball was my enemy ... As the ball came towards me, I could feel my blood bubbling up inside of me."
After the drill, students tap out stories and revisions on their laptops which Writers' Express provides. Bar-Yan was working on a story about a girl who values cliques and popularity. When she and some friends lose their way in the woods during a camping trip, her perfume, make-up and bright clothes attract bees. She can only escape by jumping into a lake. By doing so, she ruins and nullifies the power of all the material trappings that she values and learns that cliques and popularity are not all that important.
The laptop session ended with a shout from one of the counselors. "Who wants to play tennis?" The campers popped up from their laptops and buzzed around the room, gathering rackets, snacks and water. A counselor had to raise her voice over the din: "Water bottles and sunblock, guys, don't forget them, they're really important!"
While some kids played tennis, others attended a painting class. Following the activities, campers found spots on a grassy hill to write about the experience in their journals.
Students must complete one page per entry and write a total of two entries a day. They also incorporate lessons they have learned about grammar into their personal prose.
" They don't learn writing's rigid technicalities with sentences from 'Warriner's English Grammar.' Instead, they work with sentences they have created," Reck said. She wants to give the students the tools to be self-sufficient writers. "When they have completed the program, they don't have to go camping to write. They can write a compelling piece about an everyday event, like a bus ride."
Besides two summer sessions in July, Writers' Express continues during
the school year as an after-school program. Recently, the organization
received a $30,000 grant from Goldman Sachs to start programs at Cummings
School and the Somerville Charter School. 
Reck and her husband, Arthur Unobskey, founded Writers' Express in 1994. They both taught history at the time and felt that writing skills were essential to studying the subject. Over the years, she, Unobskey and Writers' Express instructors have continued to develop the most efficient way to teach writing and have authored a 400-page manual for the program.
Fourteen students attended the first camp. Since then, the numbers have grown, primarily through word of mouth. "We spend very little on advertising," Reck said.
Reich, a Shady Hill student, has recommended Writers' Express to several friends and is thinking about returning herself. "I usually try new things, but this is something I'd come back to," she said. "Even after you leave, you don't forget what you've learned."
