How to Run a Young Adult Writing Workshop

Get Children and Teens Reading and Writing in Groups

Jul 30, 2009

With youth literacy on the rise, organizing a workshop for children to get together and share ideas about writing can be extremely helpful.

With the success of the Harry Potter and Twilight series of books, young adults are becoming more and more interested in reading and writing. In an effort to cultivate those interests, many youth writing workshops have sprung up all over the place. Here are some tips for running your own writing workshop for children.

As far as extra-curricular activities go, a writing workshop suffers the most from being similar to a class. Even though such a group is intended to make children learn, traditional teaching should be avoided. That means no lectures, no required/suggested note-taking, and definitely no grading. If the kids feel like they're in a class they're going to bring with them the stress and disinterest associated with a class.

Do as much in-shop writing as possible, and try to avoid "assignments" to be done outside of the workshop. Give everyone a writing prompt and spend only as much time as you have to setting it up and, after they've completed it, explaining why it works. Show them what they can accomplish when they sit down and just write without regard for if it's any good.

Writing is often advertised, especially from those more inclined towards literature, as a lonely game done alone and in depression. Most serious writers will figure out how true that can be in later years, but for now it's important not to scare anyone away. Depending on the size of the workshop, put everyone into anywhere from one to several groups and have them write a story together. Prompt them with with protagonist and antagonist and the desires of each. From there they'll brainstorm and argue and, with any luck, realize that they're not alone in this big scary writing game.

When doing the group (and personal in-group) writing, it's important to focus some time and energy on just getting the kids to start writing. Several will always be ready to just pick up a pen or pencil and go, but others will need to be reminded that a first draft is a first draft for a reason. To help enforce this idea, use really ridiculous writing exercises and tell the whole group that there's no way anyone in the room is going to be able to write anything other than bad nonsense with such a prompt. Include yourself in the mix and write with them to set an example.

Be Honest and Encouraging.

No sixth grader has ever written a poem or story that didn't deserve a second draft. At such an early stage in developing his or her writing, there's no reason not to tell a young writer just that. College and graduate-level workshops are characterized by harshness and pointing out what's wrong. Tell the kids what they did right in addition to what they did wrong, and encourage revision. With any luck, college/MFA workshops of the future will have a similar mindset.

Encourage, but don't require, the sharing of work. Not everyone is going to be comfortable reading their work to, or having their work read by, a group of their peers and an adult. Never force a kid to read when she doesn't want to, but continuously assure her of the benefits of reading original work to a crowd (hearing the cadence of the piece, learning verbal flow, etc).

With just these tips and a handful of notebooks and pens (and kids to give them to), any competent adult can organize a group for young adults to get together and write together.

The copyright of the article How to Run a Young Adult Writing Workshop in Writing for Children is owned by Ryan Werner. Permission to republish How to Run a Young Adult Writing Workshop in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.