What can PLWP do for Parents and Students?
Throughout the year, PLWP Teacher Consultants conduct programs for young writers.
Thursday Writer's Workshops
Poetry, Prose, Plays, and Pizza!
Join us for one, two, or all three of these workshops conducted by our Missouri Western State University English faculty. Each session will include: workshopping winning Scholastic Writing Awards competition entries from 2007, practicing the strategies for effective writing our facilitators share with us, and writing and receiving feedback on drafts for this year's contest. In addition to pizza, everyone who comes to the workshop will receive a notebook for journaling as well as a Thursday Writer’s Workshop Certificate of Completion.
For more information or to see the flyer, check out the website here.
Summer Writing Camps
When the school year ends, the learning has just begun for young writers in Northwest Missouri. Every summer, the St. Joseph School District sponsors PLWP's elementary and middle school writing camps. For the month of June, the best writers (nominated by their teachers) from elementary and middle school spend their mornings on the campus of Missouri Western State University. Area teachers lead the campers in lessons and activities designed to improve, inspire, and ignite their writing.
For information about the 2010 summer writing camps offered by PLWP and the St. Joseph School District, contact Christie Leigan, PLWP Youth Program Director.
2009 "Writers Under Construction" Elementary School Camp Retrospective
2009 "CyberWriters: Publishing Our Generation" Middle School Camp Retrospective
2008 "Writers In Progress" Camp Retrospective
2008 "Draw Your Own Conclusions..." Camp Retrospective
2007 "Writers 2B" Camp Retrospective
High School Writing Day
The first Thursday in March brings the best teenage writers in Northwest Missouri and their teachers to the Missouri Western State University campus to participate in a series of writing workshops conducted by PLWP Teacher Consultants (TC) and/or university faculty.
2007 "Write Now" High School Writing Day Retrospective
2008 "American Writer" High School Writing Day Retrospective
2009 "American Writer 2" High School Writing Day Retrospective
Celebrating Rural Poetry
In 2006, PLWP received a grant from the Rural Sites Network to hold a youth poetry contest. Launched at High School Writing Day, the project sought place-based poetry submissions from area students. A panel of local poets was formed to judged the entries. Timothy Weeks, a ninth-grade home schooled student from Savannah, won the contest for his poem, “Blessed Man.” Weeks, his mother, and project coordinator Rebecca Dierking traveled to Washington, DC for a poetry reading at the Library of Congress. A celebration was also held at the St. Joseph Public Library, where the top ten young poets and the panel of judging poets read their works. An e-anthology and chap book were also published and distributed. Copies of the chap book are available in the PLWP office. For more information, contact Rebecca Dierking, project coordinator.
Celebrating Rural Poetry e-Anthology
Scholastic Scoring Sessions
Since 2004, PLWP has served as a preliminary judging site for the Scholastic Writing Awards, the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers national, annual high school writing and art contest. In 2007, thirty-seven area pre-service teachers and teachers and MWSU faculty members met at Missouri Western State University on Saturday, January 19, and/or Saturday, January 26 where they judged over 3000 student contest entries. The teachers scored dramatic scripts, poetry, personal essay/memoir, humor, journalism, novel, science fiction/fantasy, and portfolio pieces written by students, grades seven - 12, from throughout the country.
