MightyWriters

“On the Road” Workshops

Are you looking to turn a group of Philly students into Mighty Writers but unable to make it to our center at 15th and Christian?

We take some of our tried-and-true writing workshop classes “on the road” for students at local organizations, schools, libraries and youth centers.

Please choose from the following Mighty favorites, and get in touch. All On the Road workshops are fee-for-service and prices are available upon request.

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Comic Madness
Suggested age group: 10 and up
Teaching Artist: Alli Katz
Learn techniques for crafting a narrative, pacing, storyboarding, page layout and cover art. During six one-hour sessions, students produce their very own comic books individually or in small groups. Join the ranks of the Mighty Comic Artists. Available as a single or six-session workshop.

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To the Beat Y’all
Suggested age group: 8 to 10 years
Teaching Artist: Karas Lamb
Learn how to rap! Through this workshop, we’ll learn how to put rhythm and rhyme to our writing about family, neighborhoods and friends. Be prepared to take your poetic flair to new and exciting heights with the addition of instrumental music and rhythmic group performance. A graduate of the Writing for Film and Television Program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Karas Lamb is a freelance writer with an ear for great music and a love for the written word. Join the Mighty Cypher. Together, we’ll make our own raps and show the world we’ve got skills.

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Stage to Page
Suggested age group: 5 to 7 years
Teaching Artist: Martha Cooney
We’ll use our imaginations to explore oral storytelling and drama as a kickstart for writing down stories about knights, castles, princesses and other royalty. As young directors and players, we’ll bring our stories to life, then write and illustrate our stories in book form. We’ll learn the basic elements of a story including the who (characters), where (setting) and what (plot). Come stir up the magic of the stories we create through play!

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Writing Rocks! Family Literacy Workshop
For families of Mighty Writers aged 4-8
Teaching Artist: Martha Cooney
Available as a single 2-hour session, or a series of six sessions, this family literacy workshop teaches parents of young children how to encourage their children to write clearly and creatively. Get your kids excited about writing with fun activities from creating storybooks based on artistic projects to dramatic play games that inspire the written word, with a bumper crop of takeaway items and ideas to help you incorporate literacy throughout daily life, from the kitchen to the park to Grandma’s house and back.

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Sister Slam
Suggested age group: 10 and up
Teaching Artist: Linda Oatman High
A performance poetry workshop based upon the book “Sister Slam and the Poetic Motormouth Road Trip,” by Linda Oatman High. What will be your slam poet name? How about your best friend’s? What are the keys to winning a poetry slam? Come and see. Each student will complete a free-verse poem and get a first chance to perform their poem in a safe and encouraging atmosphere.

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Doctors and Detectives
Suggested age group: 6 to 8 years
Teaching Artist: Ray Guzman
Doctors use their investigative skills to determine what’s wrong with a patient, and then they try to help. We’ll do the same with sentences. Detectives use their reasoning to determine the course of events that have already happened. We’ll do something similar with paragraphs. Join one of “Philly’s Best Teachers of 2011,” Ray Guzman, for this Mighty fun skill-building workshop.

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Writing My Neighborhood
Suggested age group: 12 and up
Teaching Artist: Sam Allingham
Students discuss what it means to be from a place. The class will move from basic sense description—eyes for visual imagery, nose for smells, ears for dialogue—to more complex questions like “what’s my route?” (where I go and don’t go) and “who do I meet?” (who I talk to and who I don’t). Available as a single or six-session workshop.

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Sportswriting
Suggested age group: 13 and up
Teaching Artist: Annette John-Hall
Have a case of World Series fever? Is Michael Vick your main man? Come work with a writer who covered pro sports, Annette John-Hall. A columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Annette will discuss all the hottest topics in sports and show what it takes to make a story pop. Learn insider secrets about how writers get professional athletes to open up in an interview.

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Sports Blogging
Suggested age group: 12 and up
Teaching Artist: Sam Watson
Does sports talk get you fired up? When you’re in a restaurant, do your eyes wander to the game on the tube? Do you have an app on your phone that tells you when your team scores? Learn to write sports stories and bring your opinions to the blogosphere. We’ll talk about branding ourselves as sports personalities and write our own online blog posts. Available as a six-session workshop only.