Special from Rosemarie Wurth-Grice
It is difficult to believe that we are already through three days of the VAMPY Writing class. Day one was, as most campers would concur, a bit overwhelming. Students were given an overview of the class, which is set up in a writing/reading workshop format. They set goals for our first week here that included daily ethnographer reports, student-taught grammar lessons, drafting and revising a literacy autobiography, reading a selection of non-fiction essays, and drafting and revising a student essay.
Day two was more comfortable and, according to most of the students’ journal entries, actually fun! Staff librarian Ellen Micheletti at the Educational Resource Center gave a wonderful presentation over a selection of the library’s popular non-fiction and fiction titles, and students settled into some quiet reading workshop time. Afterward, we hiked up the hill to the Kentucky Museum for a self-guided tour and some on-site writing. The history buffs in the group loved some of the displays on and from the Civil War.
On day three, the class completed a narrative writing exercise and then took another hike across campus to the Helm-Cravens Library for a presentation on information research and data retrieval. They also got in some research time for their debate and multi-modal multi-genre projects.
Whew! It’s been a busy and exciting week so far, and I only see promising things to come!