Fitz's Summer Writing Communities

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

~Anaïs Nin

Joshua Sawyer,

--from “Fires in the Belly”

Fitz’s Essays:

Writing Tips & Reflections:

The Crafted Word
Fitz’s Summer Communities

Good writing helps us find beauty and meaning in the commonplace events of our lives; it helps us to see, to feel, and to know who we are and where we stand in relation to the world around us. Good writing is a gift to our readers. An attentive and skilled writer is always appreciated and admired. Solid and mechanically sound writing skills are essential for effective communication of our thoughts, insights, and feelings. It doesn’t matter if you are writing a poem, a proposal, an essay, or a story, the right words—effectively delivered—do more than please your teacher, your client, or your boss. Your good writing “shows” in a real and palpable way that you care about the power of words, and that you care how you are perceived and how you communicate. Good writing tacitly acknowledges our enduring debt and gratitude to the broader world of literature. The Crafted Word is dedicated to teaching, acquiring, reinforcing and practicing the skills that are indispensable for literate and fluent reading and writing.

The Crafted Word offers several summer reading and writing programs for grades 4-12—and beyond. The Crafted Word uses password-protected blogs to create educationally directed, age-based writing communities dedicated to helping students and adults develop real and lasting writing skills and an appreciation for literature in a safe, supportive and teacher-guided environment. The Crafted Word blogs are built from the ground up as educational communities to help writers of all ages develop a clear, effective and natural narrative voice through daily journal writing and guided writing prompts within their peer group writing community; moreover, every student is encouraged to appreciate the power, joy and craft of the written word through writing personal reflections and formal essays on shared readings of classic literature and poetry.

When You Join a Crafted Word Community You Will

• Receive your own password protected personal weblog where you can post your writing as well as your photos, music and more. Your blog can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection.
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your writing, as an experienced teacher of writing guides you through the steps you need to take to become a better writer.
• Become a part of a safe and supportive peer writing community who share in your writing by offering you positive and constructive feedback and encouragement on your writing.
• Receive timely feedback on your writing from both the other members in your writing communities and from an experienced writing teacher.
• Learn to punctuate and paragraph with ease and confidence.
* Make new friends and share your experiences and love of writing with people who genuinely care about you as a person.
• Develop literary fluency—and your own writer’s voice—through guided journal writing and specific writing prompts.
• Focus on what you enjoy writing: Anything that encourages the craft of writing is encouraged, including: poetry, songs, short stories, journaling, essays, memoirs, sports articles, book, music and movie reviews—even novels!
• Write well-crafted and engaging essays on topics that interest you and your readers using Fitz’s easy to follow formulas and rubrics.

The Individual Communities

Anyone can learn to love writing. All it takes is guidance, support and the opportunity to explore and share the writing process in a small community of people who care about what they write and who are eager to respectfully—and regularly—join in the creative and intellectual work of the writing community. The Crafted Word is offering both our traditional weblog communities, including a community for parents, as well as several more focused and guided writing opportunities. All Crafted Word communities are password protected, private sites. In these tough economic times, it is important to spend your money wisely: One month of a Crafted Word blog costs less than a single session with a private tutor!

Fitzbloggers: This is the original and most diverse Crafted Word community. It grew out of group of students I previously taught who wanted to keep on blogging—even after graduation from the school where I teach 8th grade English. Fitzbloggers is for students in their High School years who love to write--or even for those who just “want” to love writing—and are willing to do what it takes to become more skilled, confident and effective writers. There is always a lively exchange of ideas, opinion pieces, personal narratives and reflections, as well as formal literary and expository essays, amazing poetry and songs, and even book length collections of short stories and novellas.

Fitzbloggers is a community for young men and women entering or in high school who are discovering (or who have already discovered) the excitement and challenge of being a true writer. Students in Fitzbloggers are encouraged to try new styles of writing and to expand the breadth and depth of their writing and thinking skills by showing a willingness to study and practice the craft of writing and reflective reading. Students are expected to offer honest, supportive and mature critiques of the writing pieces posted in their community, and they should always be reading—and reflecting one—a work of intellectually challenging literature from their summer reading lists.
June 15th- August 30th: $250.00

Young Teens: This community is for boys and girls in, or just leaving, the sixth and seventh grades. This is a lively community of kids writing, poetry, songs, short stories, personal reflections, daily journal entries and literary reflections on the books they are reading. In this community, writers are expected to embrace the need and value of revision in their own work and they are expected to actively post positive and constructive critiques of the works of all of their fellow community members in Young Teens.

Students are guided towards developing a strong and effective narrative voice that reflects clarity and conciseness. Students are encouraged to harness the power of nouns and verbs to create meaningful poetry, short stories and personal essays; additionally, students are encouraged to engage self-editing for style, effective punctuation (especially commas), varied and vivid vocabulary use, the logical flow of paragraphs and consistency of tone.

As in every Crafted Word community, the main emphasis of Young Teens is to create a positive, fun, and rewarding writing experience and to enable each child to be a part of the shared journeys of real writers within a caring community of writers.
June 15th- August 30th: $250.00

The Writers Club: The Kid’s Club is a low-key and low-pressure community designed to foster joyful, articulate and confident writers no matter what their starting point or skill level. This is a writing community for boys and girls in or leaving upper elementary school, typically grades three through five. Ben Smith (a beloved 4th grade teacher at The Fenn School) and myself guide, cajole, and encourage the community to share their summer experiences; to reflect on good books they have read, and to practice solid writing skills through attentive punctuation and paragraphing. The emphasis is on developing and practicing the skills of regular journaling and the writing of more refined writing pieces.

Students are free to choose interesting topics from out of the events of their lives--and their imagination--and to craft short stories, personal narratives and poetry. They can post photos of their summer experiences and create interesting photo-blogs of their summer vacations. We continually reinforce the need for clear and interesting introductions to their writing pieces; the use of images and actions to help tell the story and the importance of a good and memorable ending. We stress the value of re-reading every sentence out loud to help create a more natural narrative flow, as well as the basics of paragraphing ideas and events, using dialogue and images and actions to help create vivid writing, and the effective use of commas and end punctuation. Students write their own individual pieces and also read and comment on the writing works of the other writers in their community.
June 15th- August 30th: $250.00

Individual Essay and Creative Writing Help
Often, writers need or want the jump start that individual tutoring offers. A person may want to focus on the essay skills and essay portfolios that will help them in both their classroom work and in the secondary and college application process. I also work individually with students who want one on one guidance with their short stories, poetry, and even novels! I can meet at arranged times throughout the summer at my home or via a Skype webcast. Students and myself work through the editing and revision process using Adobe pdf’s shared via e-mail. PDF's are a tool that I use with my own students in school to give them specific feedback on their writing pieces, including detailed audio comments, highlighted text with sticky notes, suggested changes, notes on grammar and mechanical errors, links to online quizzes, interactive exercises, and powerpoint presentations to help them with the challenges we all face as writers. It is a powerful, individualized, and effective process, and it is a valuable accompaniment to the narrative writing on the summer blogs for students who have the time and the motivation to engage a more rigorous program of writing.

Please e-mail me, or call 978-793-1553, if you have any questions. Thank you for your interest in The Crafted Word writing communities.

Scholarships are available for all Crafted Word communities.

The Cost for each Community is $250.00 for Ten Weeks, beginning June 15, 2009
Space is limited for each community.

Thank you for your interest,

Fitz

Join Now!
Common Questions E-mail Fitz

The Crafted Word, 15 Marlboro St, Maynard MA 01754

Tel. 978-793-1553, E-mail: fitz@johnfitz.com