Welcome to VAMPY WRITING, a three-week course that can be related to Introduction to College Writing (English 100) at Western Kentucky University. I am Rosemarie Wurth-Grice, and I will have the pleasure of teaching and learning this summer. As an introduction, I am a native Kentuckian, a mother of three sons, and a veteran high school teacher of 15 years with a Masters in English with a focus on Creative Writing. During the regular school year, I teach AP English Language and Composition and English II at Barren County High School. In my spare time, I write poetry and short fiction, garden, and spend time with my family on a small farm in Warren County. I am pleased to say my teaching assistant this summer is John Wurth. John is my oldest son and is finishing an Anthropology and Arabic double major in the Honors College at WKU.
As for the course, VAMPY WRITING is a language intensive and conducted as a writing/reading workshop. It is designed so students will set literacy goals and and be given choices in writing and reading related to exposition, poetry, fiction, and argument. The writing process is emphasized as well as the writer’s audience, purpose, and voice. The culminating activity is a presentation of multigenre/multimodal projects — writing that integrates fiction, poetry, and prose in a multimodal fashion to make a statement about which the writer is passionate. At the end of the three weeks not only will the students have grown as writers, but they will have formed a community of writers and friends.
I look forward to the next three weeks and will keep you posted on our journey.
Rosemarie Wurth-Grice