By Kaela Vecchia-Zeitz
Nearly 30 members of the Vineyard literary community visited high school classes last week to spread their writing wisdom during the school’s second annual Writers Week. Island authors led interactive classes that involved many exercises, including six-word stories, photo captions, dialogue creation, and collaborative storytelling.
There were over 400 submissions for the six-word story competition, according to English teacher Spencer D’Agostino. “The whole purpose of Writers Week is to get students writing in a way where it’s fun, doable, and quick. We want to show students that writing is a way to express themselves. We hope to continue our work of getting kids who might not otherwise see themselves as good writers to start writing,” he said. “We purposefully made sure that the poster said Writers Week, not Writer’s Week — not possessive — to make sure that kids knew that this was open to everyone, that it was welcomed and encouraged for everyone to participate.”
“This week, we want to show students that people actually write for a purpose and passion. That it can be a career — journalists, poets, fiction writers,” said English teacher Christine Ferrone, a key organizer of the event.
Novelist and dialogue specialist John Hough Jr. was one of the many writers who helped inspire younger students. “I love interacting with high school and college students. I like listening to them, and I like the challenge of persuading them to listen to me talk about fiction and the writing of it. I do this to get as many students as possible to think about writing in a new way: not just as an art form, but as an art form that they might attempt with some prospect of success,” said Mr. Hough.
Senior Molly Houghton was in one of the classes Mr. Hough taught. “I got a good confidence boost after having a professional writer read my work and give compliments and constructive criticism,” she said. “I learned that in dialogue you have to show emotion within the spoken word rather than explaining it after the quote. Dialogue isn’t supposed to sound like what people say in real life. People talk with too many filler words, and repeat themselves too much, to actually do that. Writers Week brought additional perspectives about writing into the classroom.”
Writers Week was created last school year in the hopes of motivating students to write more, but along with that, getting more Island community members to interact with high school students. “We live on an Island full of creative people. The English department wanted to bring this creativity into the high school. The concentrated number of writers in such a small community is extraordinary,” said Ms. Ferrone.
At the end of the week, the library held a coffeehouse with readings from professional writers’ works as well as the work of students.
Mr. D’Agostino said, “My favorite part of the week is seeing professional writers reading next to my students. It shows us all that really being a writer is just how you see yourself — being able to share and put yourself out there.” HSV