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ENROLLMENT IS NOW CLOSED FOR EXCEPT EXTRA MENTORING AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR THOSE ENROLLED BY 5/29/24
Creating Worlds and Growing Characters:
A Course on Storytelling for Junior High and High School Writers
SUMMER SESSION
Twelve 90-minute Zoom Sessions
and Weekly Writers’ Room Mentoring Sessions.
Thursdays, May 30 – Aug 22
6:00pm-7:30pm (EST)
(Zoom sessions will be recorded so students can watch at their leisure.)
$350 for CAI Member families
$375 for non-member families
The world needs great stories. They are the way we pass on wisdom and connect with others in essential and profound ways. This course will be a deep-dive for young people grades 7-12, into the nature of stories and why they matter. All the key parts of story will be covered including plot, arena, character, theme, dialogue and spectacle. Students will be given weekly assignments to help them begin to practice creating characters and the kind of conflict that can provoke irrevocable change. This course will change how your young person reads and watched stories, and will give them the tools they will need to start writing their own whopping good tales.
Featured Instructors:
Barbara Nicolosi PhD: Screenwriting, columnist, and university professor, Barbara Nicolosi, has a BA in Great Books from Magdalen College in Warner NH. She received a Masters in Screenwriting at Northwestern University, and a doctorate in Creative Writing from the acclaimed program at Bath Spa University in the UK. She had taught in the cinema and Honors programs at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
Angela Andrews,
received her Masters of Fine Arts in Screenwriting at Regent
University. Her undergraduate studies at Temple University and Oxford in
the UK. She has been an adjunct professor of screenwriting, and
homeschooled her four children in a classics-based program.
PROGRAM DETAILS
Twelve 90-minute Zoom Sessions and Weekly Mentoring Writers’ Room Sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Weekly Sessions take place on Thursdays, May 30 – August 22 2024
6:00pm-7:30pm (EST)
A Zoom link to join the Teaching Sessions and Writers' Room will be provided once you have enrolled and paid in full.
Our semester calendar is the following:
Thursday Night Zoom Seminars
6:00pm-7:30pm (EST)
May 30
June 6, 13, 20, 27
July 11, 18, 25
Aug 1, 8, 15, 22
Weekly Schedule
List of Topics
Week I – The Wonder and Power of Stories and Why We Need Good Ones
Week II – Aesop and the Seven Essential Parts of Great Stories
Week III – Creating a Fascinating Story World
Week IV – Kinds of Stories and What Kind You Should Tell
Week V – Conflict and Genrey
Week VI – Stories as Better Than the Real; The Best Kind of Plot
Week VII – Plot I: Beginning
Week VIII – Plot II: Middles and Endings
Week IX - A Relatable Protagonist and the Arc of Transformation
Week X – Villains and Supporting Characters
Week XI – Theme and Spectacle
Week XII - Dialogue Writing
TUITION AND FEES
Twelve seminars & two fully-edited/corrected assignments
$350 Catholic Art Institute Family Members
$375 Non-Members
$200 - 2nd Sibling Discounted Enrollment
Additional edited assignments - $25 each
Additional Mentoring $25 per half hour
Become a member and receive a discount on this and all courses/events hosted by the Catholic Art Institute. For details and to become a member, please visit: https://www.catholicartinstitute.org/membership
The course is non-refundable after May 28, 2024. Please contact us at contact@catholicartinstitute.org if you need to withdraw after May 28 and we will work to fill your space. If we can fill your space, we will provide a $150 partial refund.
ABOUT WRITE SPIRIT
Write Spirit is an online educational program of the Catholic Art Institute for those seeking
crisp, confident, and beautiful writing skills for high school and college. Our classes are taught
by
accomplished, degreed professionals who want to engage students to find
their unique voice via a Classical approach from a bedrock of biblical
faith.
Ordinary people are increasingly dependent upon Grammarly and MSWord autocorrect
features, but those tools can’t teach excellent writing. Writing is an artform that is best handed
on by experienced writers to their apprentices. Our instructors know the rules and how to
deftly walk the line between content and artistry. And they know how to impart the rules with
humor and relevance to young people today.
All of our instructors are devout Christians animated by an encompassing love of beautiful
writing married to a pastoral concern for young people. We all share the conviction that ‘in the
beginning is the word.’ That is, a young person’s growth in the ability to frame their ideas starts
with the discipline of writing. As the great novelist, E. M Forster noted, “I don’t know what I
think until I write.”
Our organizational credo includes the following:
- Writing in the RIGHT spirit means openness to Divine inspiration in the person of the Holy Spirit.
- It means caring about the audience and seeking to share work that will aid them in their journey.The task of teaching writing is a matter of getting the students to fall in love with language, with ideas, and with persuasive techniques like metaphor, imagery, symbolism, and syllogism.
- It means every written work, regardless of its purpose, should be a thing of beauty.
- Beauty in writing begins with correct grammar, engaging style, and appropriate vocabulary, motivated by a spirit of kindness to the reader. It means personal integrity of the artist is critical as demonstrated in the commitment to truth-telling, rigor, and critique animated by kindness.
- It means that your voice contributes to the Great Conversation being had by the human family. and so your ideas and your ability to articulate them matters.
OUR METHOD
A writing assignment can be paralyzing to a young person. With the help of engaging
instructors, innovative concepts, and practical exercises based in the students’ own academic
assignments, we will change panic to excitement and hopefully passion.
Write Spirit combines weekly Zoom seminars, coaching sessions, key and classic readings about
writing, and intriguing assignments geared to make the students fall in love with research and writing.
Our students will have the possibility of getting informed and affable feedback from
instructors who are fellow writers and know well the formidable challenge of the blank page.
During our Open Zoom Mentoring Sessions, students can ask for help framing their regular
school assignments, or working on personal creative projects.
QUESTIONS?