Special Projects -- Overview

Young Writers Project regularly undertakes special and recurring  special projects AND special opportunities for interested students each year. Here's a listing of some of the ongoing and the best of what we've done in the past.

YWP Slams -- Begun in 2010 by interested students, YWP holds monthly slams at its headquarters in Winooski and at other locations. In 2011/12 YWP is offering workshops in schools and at YWP during the year with performance artist Kim Jordan. For more, contact Young Writers Project at 802-324-9537. The schedule for the monthly slams will be appearing in mid-August.

Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival Blog. In the last week of August each year, an energetic team of young writers attends and writes about the festival -- poems or stories or imaginings triggered by the music; observations; essays; interviews; collaborations. The festival, held at Elley-Long Music Center, began in 2009 and is led by the brilliant violinist Soovin Kim, and features some of the world's finest musicians.

YWP Schools Project. YWP provides digital classrooms, extensive training and mentoring, Web conferences and a library of best practices to schools at an affordable fee. To find out more, go to ywpschools.net where you can read more about it and can watch a video of student reaction. Or email or call (802.324.9537) YWP Director Geoffrey Gevalt.

MASTER'S COURSE YWP offers two 3-credit, Master's-level courses, one accredited through St. Michael's College and one with the Green Mountain Writing Project through UVM;  the course includes a Digital Writing Classroom to be used in the teacher's classroom during the year. For more: go to digitalteachers.net, email or call (802.324-9539) YWP Director Geoffrey Gevalt.

The Ballad Project -- This delightful residency with reknown musician and songwriter Pete Sutherland has had remarkable impact on two schools: Benson Village and Swanton School. For information on this residency program, contact, 802-324-9537.

Vermont's Future. This was a special prompt done in 2008/9 in partnership with the Council on Vermont’s Future. Thirteen essays, stories and poems were selected for cash awards and special presentation and publication.

• YWP continued the idea by having a yearlong prompt, Vermont.
• And that led to a collaboration with Burlington City Arts that included an interwoven presentation performed in City Hall Park on Jan. 1, 2010 on the theme: Vermont, January 1, 2110

Quadricentennial Project. YWP partnered with Burlington City Arts and Champlain College to focus student writing and other activities around the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's arrival at the lake that now bears his name. The prompts, Discovery, First Encounter and Border Crossings, were written throughout the year. Several were then given public readings during a televised panel discussion.

Six Pieces in Six Words in Six Minutes. This was an exciting partnership with Vermont Symphony Orchestra: Six students had their six-word short stories chosen; those pieces were given to a young composer who wrote one-minute pieces of music for each. In two concerts held in early December, 2008, students read their pieces and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra played one-minute musical interpretations of each.

The China Project: The Young Writers Project led this multimedia project that involved several dozen students in the Vermont Youth Orchestra who went on a performing tour of China in the summer of 2007. Students participated in workshops, a multimedia blog and had their work published in newspapers, on Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television and on stage at First Night/Burlington. Click here to read more, see a multimedia collage about the project and find links to news articles about it. This project gives you an idea of the power and potential of doing a project on the Web.

Other ongoing projects and programs:

STUDENT JUDGING. Help YWP choose the best student submissions for publication in newspapers and on the Web site. All work submitted to YWP is judged by students online under the guidance of Lee McIsaac, the YWP’s content coordinator. This year, YWP also will have Judging in the Classroom. We will come to your classroom and have students read the finalists and choose which ones should get published. Student judges will be asked to judge only a few times during the year. If you're interested, e call 802.324-9537.

COLLEGE MENTORS. Top students from St. Michael’s College, the University of Vermont, Castleton State College and Middlebury College have been providing feedback on student entries submitted to the Newspaper Series. If you are a college student and are interested, contact Geoffrey Gevalt. For more, click here.