Young Writer's Camp 2009

Young Writers Camp was a smashing success in 2009, its 18th summer, with 207 student participants from throughout Santa Barbara County enjoying a range of activities on four different campuses. At Allan Hancock College, Jan Brown and Sharon Luft worked with the younger students using the theme “Under the Deep”. Students integrated sea stories and fairy tales and wrote of mysterious golden pearls, mermaids in the deep blue sea, and pirate searches and treasures. 7th to 9th grade campers, led by Vickie Gill and Mark Jasso, explored heritage, family traditions, and places that are important to them, as well as learning some cool Michael Jackson dance moves. The picture to the left shows a few students from the 7th to 9th grade group on the swings...thoroughly engaged in writing.

Participants at Oxnard College were, in the words of site coordinator Sally King, “...an enthusiastic group of mellow campers with happy teachers”. The highlight of camp was a trip to the television station where students directed, produced and acted in a presentation of a fairy tale, which was aired on TV. Campers were even designated as camera crew and worked in the technical booth. Kitty Merrill, the manager of the station, helped them put everything together in just an hour’s time. Sally King, Matt Urwick, Kim Ernest, and Darryl Lewis-Abriol were the teachers.

At California Lutheran College, campers enjoyed a mixed media art and writing project, making altered books with writing, collages, and found art. Teachers Jerri Lejuene, Pat Bachamp, Cathy Crook, and Mary Gutierrez varied the way they did the graduation by having parents and students make individual comments as they walked around the room with the books displayed as an exhibition. They also had a great time doing nature explorations down in the creek.

UCSB teachers were Barbara Conway, Karen Taylor, Matt McCaffrey, Alison Bright, Bojana Hill, Amy Christensen, Peggy Nicholson, and Janet Longpre, who led campers into journalism, acting, and other adventures. The 2nd and 3rd grade group went to the office of The Nexus, the campus newspaper, where a student manager provided a tour. James Badham from Santa Barbara Magazine came to the morning classes and did some wonderful exercises on building descriptive details in a story. Afternoon groups tackled the climbing wall with the help of UCSB student climbers, and Matt Tavianini, an actor and producer with the Boxtales Theater Production Company, took campers through a series of acrobatic yoga and acting exercises, which somehow evolved into animal poetry. Graduation was celebrated down at the lagoon.

With the generous support of Academic Preparation and Equal Opportunity (APEO) and the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) we were able to give 70 YWC scholarships this year. Ocean View School District continues to pay for students through their Migrant Education funds. This was the first summer we partnered with EAOP to launch a Summer Writing Camp Academy for 8th graders at Goleta Valley Junior High led by Lois Klein and Joy Hoffar. All these programs were successful due to the expert skills, insights, and caring work of our SCWriP Fellows, both old and new.

Email: alinecarp@verizon.net if you are interested for next summer.

Click Here to Download a Zip File of All the Photos

Last Updated: November 10, 2009