At a St Louis, Mo., elementary school, students are spending a few days this summer in a camp that allows them to produce a newspaper, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The camp goes by the name of “StudioSTL” and began when Beth Ketcher, its founder and executive director, decided to create a community writing center for students at all skill levels.
A few volunteers at the center work with local schools to provide writing workshops, and every summer, they run this camp. It’s modeled after a program Dave Eggers developed known as the 826 Valencia organization, which is based in San Francisco. Other regional chapters of 826 Valencia are at work in Seattle, Brooklyn, Michigan, Boston, Washington, and Chicago.
Ms Ketcher decided to start the program after noticing students in her daughter’s second-grade class had trouble expressing themselves, even in talking about their own lives. And if second graders have trouble talking about something, having to write it down only amplifies the communication difficulties they experience.
The writing program at StudioSTL, designed for teenagers, focuses on news writing, which also gives teens an opportunity to learn about what’s happening in their communities. They research their topics in a computer lab, talk to experts, and reach a potentially wider audience. But most importantly, they write and produce a tangible finished product.
“The ability to see that your hard work is going to pay off is essential,” the paper quoted Ms Ketcher, who quit her law practice in 2004 in order to create the camp, as saying.
