Not only are vampires big business in the latest book series and on the big screen, but vampires took center stage during the Coalfield Writers annual summer creative writing camp for middle school students.

As books, movies, and television shows featuring vampires and paranormal features continues to ride a wave of popularity, Coalfield Writers teachers decided to design the annual summer camp to capitalize on the current literacy interests of most middle school students, and Vamp Camp was born.

Camp was held June 21 through 25 at Chapmanville Middle school, with 25 campers meeting daily. Throughout the week many fun activities captivated the students, but underneath the fun was a multitude of beneficial academic skills.
The lessons of Vamp Camp focused on the traits of good story

So what do teachers do during summer? Do they spend time lounging at the pool? Do they read many books? Do they vacation at the beach? Certainly they do all of those things, and additionally, they work. The idea of a teacher taking summer vacation with three months of free days is a stereotype that does not fit most hard working teachers who wish to strengthen their classroom practice. Instead, most teachers spend portions of their so-called summer break in professional development programs designed to deepen their understanding of learning, and as soon as school was dismissed this year a large group of area teachers began the first round of professional development sessions.

This year Coalfield Writers, a satellite of Marshall University Writing Project, offered the opportunity for teacher consultants of the site to participate in a Resource Development Retreat. The program was designed to allow participating teachers large blocks of time to envision and create programs that would strengthen offerings in all area schools.

Students in Andréa Santos' Spanish classes at Logan High School modeled poetry after Latino poet Martín Espada's tribute poem "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's "I'm Explaining a Few Things". See video below...

This is a video of my second grade class doing their first newscast! They came up with the idea and I filmed it for them! They did a really good job :)

Marshall University Writing Project, in association with Coalfield Writers and Logan County Schools, hosted a spring Creative Writing Camp for students. The theme for this camp wass FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES and all classes had literacy lessons that involved movie night.

Friday Night at the Movies was a creative writing camp program with separate classes for students in grades 2, 3 - 5, 6 – 8 and 9 - 12. Camp was held on the evening of March 12, 2010 at Logan High School and was open to all area students in grades 2 through 12 this school year.

Coalfield Writers 2010 Summer Institute will be held at Logan High School from 9 a.m. till 3:30 daily, June 14 through July 2, 2010. There will be 5 additional follow up days for participants to complete during the fall term.

Upon successful completion of the institute Summer Institute fellows earn a stipend of $500 paid through Marshall University Writing Project.

Additionally, fellows can choose to earn 6 hours of graduate credit (3 for the summer institute and 3 for the fall follow up program) with tuition completely waived.

For more information check out the FAQ about summer institute, or contact Coalfield Writers Director Tracy Baisden at tracy.baisden@gmail.com or 304.785.6780