Writing Courses

In CTY writing courses, students engage in close reading and discussion of professional and student work in order to develop both an appreciation for the nuances of well-constructed texts and the skills to craft lively and effective writing themselves.

Each course follows the workshop format used in Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars. During workshops, students receive detailed responses to their writing from instructional staff as well as from their peers. Serving as experienced fellow writers, instructors mentor students and critique their work as carefully as they would that of their colleagues. Instructors typically hold advanced degrees in creative writing, composition and rhetoric, or literature, and are themselves active writers.

Class discussions and presentations, close reading activities, and writing exercises help students identify and practice the elements of powerful writing: precise diction and vivid details; deft control of tone; careful use of irony and point of view; and attention to the rhythms of language.

Students leave our writing courses with a foundation for success in AP and college-level courses and with the confidence to express their own voices in a variety of forms.

Please refer to our Eligibility web page for minimum test score requirements for writing courses. The following writing courses are listed below:

Crafting the Essay
Writing by the Bay
Whodunit?: Mystery and Suspense in Literature and Film
The Graphic Novel

Sample syllabi for all courses are also available below.

Writing Course Descriptions and Syllabi

Crafting the Essay

Sample syllabus

Participants in this course examine the concepts and practices authors use to craft engaging personal essays and learn to use the literary devices and figurative language common in fiction and poetry to enrich their own nonfiction prose.

Through textual analysis and class discussion of readings by creative nonfiction writers such as Annie Dillard, Richard Rodriguez, and Charles Simic, students learn the hallmarks of effective personal essay writing. In their own work, students experiment with imagery and language, tone and mood, and a variety of structures.

In addition to daily readings, informal writing assignments, and regular workshops, students complete four to six major essays. They gain a clearer sense of the skills and practices of successful writers and greater knowledge of their own strengths as authors. In addition, they leave the course with critical reading skills that transcend disciplines and will help them in future coursework.

Note: Students who have completed CTY's Writing the Expository Essay should not take this course.

Sample texts: Back to the Lake: A Reader for Writers, Cooley; materials compiled by the instructor.

Session 1: Bristol, Easton, Santa Cruz
Session 2: Easton, Santa Cruz

Writing by the Bay

Sample syllabus

What influence does a place have on who we are or on what we write? The towering redwood forests and rugged coastline of Northern California are the setting for a complex tradition of nature writing as well as a distinct social and literary history. In this course, students explore the Monterey Bay area and its literature, using the physical setting and readings to inspire their own personal narratives and critical essays.

Looking to writers such as N. Scott Momaday, Mary Austin, and Henry David Thoreau, the class begins by addressing the challenges of capturing a place on the page; students tackle ideas of the sense of place, the politics of space, and the ways authors evoke a sense of space in literature. The class then moves to texts by authors such as John Steinbeck, Ishmael Reed, and Shawn Wong, whose works reflect the social issues of a growing population. Through these readings, students consider how a single region can be captured in diverse literary styles and how local sites visited during field trips, such as Cannery Row or San Juan Bautista Mission, can have contrasting or even conflicting meanings to different writers.

Personal and critical essay writing assignments help students develop creative writing skills such as “show, don’t tell,” as well as the organization, sentence variety, and rhetorical precision that constitute strong nonfiction prose.

Sample texts: Cannery Row, Steinbeck; San Francisco Stories: Great Writers on the City, Miller; materials compiled by the instructor.

Field Trip Fee: $65

Session 1: Santa Cruz
Session 2: Santa Cruz

Whodunit?: Mystery and Suspense in Literature and Film

This writing class introduces students to an intriguing genre of popular culture: mystery. What elements create a mystery? How do cinematography and sound in film build suspense? What are the literary merits of the mystery genre, and what do mysteries tell us about our culture?

Students read classic mystery writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Agatha Christie. They also study clips from a variety of films, including early horror classics and film noir from the Forties and Fifties. By examining literary techniques such as characterization and plot, as well as film techniques such as camera angles and lighting, students analyze the ways writers and directors manipulate these key elements to build suspense and heighten tension on the page and the screen.

Students apply their knowledge of mysteries in formal critical essays and in their own brief stories and scenes.

Sample texts: Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle; And Then There Were None, Christie; Red Harvest, Hammett.

Session 1: Bristol, Easton, Santa Cruz, Seattle
Session 2: Bristol, Easton, Seattle

The Graphic Novel

One of the most innovative literary forms of recent years, the graphic novel is a work that uses a combination of words and sequential art to convey a narrative. From the Filipina-American narrator in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons to Bosnian survivors in Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde to an AIDS educator in Judd Winick’s Pedro and Me, the graphic novel has become a significant medium for tackling a wide range of historical, social, and political issues. In this writing-intensive course, students discover how graphic novels use words and images to expand traditional narrative structures and conventions.

By examining literary techniques such as tone, flashback, and characterization, as well as visual elements such as framing, shading, and perspective, students analyze how artists and writers marry visual art and literature. Using a text such as Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics to guide them, students learn the particulars of the genre before proceeding to more advanced critical analysis. For example, students might examine Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s politicized deconstruction of superheroes in Watchmen, or they may discuss the use of extended metaphor in Art Spiegelman’s treatment of the Holocaust in Maus.

Throughout the session, students apply their knowledge of the graphic novel in formal critical essays and in creative pieces that explore techniques of sequential art, such as layout and plot breakdowns.

Note: This course includes some controversial material; it is recommended for students who have completed 9th grade or higher.

Sample texts: Understanding Comics, McCloud; American Born Chinese, Yang; Dropsie Avenue, Eisner; Watchmen, Moore and Gibbons.

Session 1: Easton
Session 2: Not offered

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