the Gallery
Studio13 Courses
A Writer’s Voice and the Art of Revising
Students will refine a personal writing style through elaboration, word choice, and humor or nostalgia as writers plan, draft, and compose a multi-paragraph paper. This class is for the writer who loves the challenge of rigorous instruction and recognizes the first draft is not the best draft. Each student’s writing “voice” will strengthen through teacher-guided sessions on composition and revision plus individualized teacher feedback. Perfection is not the goal; a strenuously revised paper is.
If Paragraphs Were Pancakes and the Art of Expression
What if your scholar got a head start on learning how to write a college application essay? In this class, students will delve into the art of expression through various writing prompts. Instead of writing one extended paper, students will participate in a writing workshop where each class, instruction is provided on a particular skill and students write shorter pieces. Each composition is like an order of short stacks.
For example, for two sessions, writers may focus on elaboration and detail through a personal essay, the next week, they will master introductions and conclusions, and another time, compose a short work of fiction or poem about a photograph. The “thread” connecting each class is the practice of clear, creative, and correct writing. Whether essay, fiction, or free verse, the goal is for the writer to explore a myriad of ways to express one’s thoughts. As always, written feedback is provided as well as one-on-one conferences between student and instructor.
Language Analytics and the Art of Diagramming
What if your child understood words such as modifier, predicate, auxiliary verb as these apply to the basics of grammar? Better yet, what if that same beloved child never again posed the cringe-worthy question, “Me and Jane are bored. Can her and me go to Grits this afternoon?”
In this fast-paced class, Jane will introduce students to the parts of speech as well as the parts of a sentence and teach them the intrigue and art of diagramming sentences. Along the way, she promises to entertain them a little as she turns them into adolescent grammarians.
Imagination Unleashed and the Art of Free Verse
What if your child saw life through a poetic lens and regaled you with original free verse? In this course, students will compose poetry to discover how precise word selection and arrangement of phrases create profound images and stories. Students will write poems for fun and to utilize metaphors, personification, and complex phrasing. These poets will examine rhyming and structured poems, but primarily discover the impact of constructing free verse poetry. The real goal? To play with words.
The Bard of Avon and the Art of Theatre
Students will meet the Bard, William Shakespeare, learn of his era, and read one of his most delightful comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since students learn Shakespeare by doing Shakespeare, the thespians, equipped with comical props, will perform each scene as they read. Students will connect personally to the characters through journal entries discovering that the themes of a play first printed in 1600 are timeless and resonate today. It is Jane’s ultimate goal that along the way, these scholars realize that Shakespeare is fun.