Last month, I had the distinct pleasure to head down to Indiana to visit Culver Academy. The writing center at this private secondary school was having its annual Excellence in Writing Awards, and they asked me to come down and give a few words for the occasion. Don’t think I wasn’t a little intimidated at the prospect — they gave out awards for, among others, best original composition in Chinese and Latin and best mathematical writing. The students, like all teenagers, tried to be flip about the significance of the event, like “I write in Latin every day, but usually not in verse like this.” But somewhere down inside they were proud, and they had every reason to be.
The next day, I conducted writing workshops with the Freshmen, Sophomores and Juniors — around 175 all told. I was a little nervous to start, but each class ended up being a rousing time. In our short periods together, I wanted to give the students some pointers on making their writing more vivid and precise. We started out talking about warm-up exercises, then did some “quick writing” to show the importance of lively, precise verbs and vivid sensory information. I also included a few lessons from improvisational acting to give them hints to goose their writing along when things get bogged down. By the end of each class, I had the enviable problem of getting them to leave off their editing and let me give some closing remarks and helpful resources. Other teachers out there might doubt this, but my hand to Strunk & White, I swear it’s true.
And these weren’t just students interested in writing, mind you. There were all the kids from the Humanities classes, so a lot of them were probably expecting a blow-off class. It was very gratifying to deprive them of that.
I met students from all over the country and around the world, and they were attentive, articulate and just downright cool. They were all a pleasure to be around. A couple even gave me some of their personal writing to look over when I got back. I hope they enjoyed their time with me as much as I did with them.
Below are some pictures of their beautiful campus. Also, here’s a write-up of the workshop from the Culver Newsletter.
