College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley, Days 7, 8,9

Thursday's post, authored by Walter: Today we started off by going outside and doing some inspiring games outside with cards that had random sayings on them. Then we brought class back inside to talk and write about the saying. To end the day we had a free write and then talked about what we learned today

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

1. Eric wrote about risks

2. Walter wrote about being an individual


Wednesday's post, authored by Rosalie: We warmed up by free-writing about a quote that meant something to us. We then prepared for the writing portion of the SAT by taking a 25 minute practice test. Finally, we had a long period of free time to write and polish our pieces. At the end of class, we all shared an excerpt from our works.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:
1.. Eric used vivid detail to describe his unique dog.
2. Kailea made us laugh with her story about eavesdropping on neighbors.
3. Gabby shared some interesting thoughts on being inspired by the lake.


Tuesday's post, authored by Kailea: Today we focused a great deal on SAT practice. Ms. Harlen gave us an essay scoring guide that told us how the SAT writing essays are scored. We used this guide to grade essays that were written for the SAT. Surprisingly, most of us were wrong about what each essay scored, which just gave us an idea of what to expect when we took the SATs. Later, Mr. Guffrovich from Admissions at Penn State Lehigh Valley came to give us advice on our numerous college questions.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:
1. Emily asked Mr. Guffrovich an excellent question about how much the SATs counted towards applying to college: Answer-1/3

2. Gabi, Nikki and Abby’s group got the most correct on grading the SAT writing essays

3. Shelby made a fine statement about how we need to be aware of what we find as a good essay the people grading the SATs might think otherwise; we need to be aware of our readers

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Erik authored this post:

Today we started off with an unusual story telling activity using Silly Bands as characters in a story. We then went outside for activities of visualization (tableaus, actions, gestures, etc). We followed this up with a sort of frame-by-frame scene, acting with partners where we had to walk, wait, watch, wave and walk. The audience had to guess what we were doing. We continued to write about talk about what we believe. We finally finished out with free writing and sharing what we believe.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

* Nikki and Rosalie went to the movies for their scene acting.

*Shelby had an unusual experience being attacked by the local wildlife.

*Emily shared some of her personal beliefs about physics class.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Gabi authored this blog post…

First, we read some of Ms. Harlen’s quotes about friendship, and became inspired to find our own favorite quotes online. We each made a poster with our favorite quotes on it, which led to a discussion about what we each believe. We found out more about each other in a group, but had personal realizations as well.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

Emily firmy knew where she stood when we were discussing our beliefs.

Nikki told us about some of her personal and religious beliefs.

Shelby made some convincing arguments when we were discussing whether killing a human was right or wrong.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today, we began the day with word puzzles that boggled our
minds. After exercising our brains, we exercised our bodies with
entertaining improv games. We ended the day by writing about our favorite places and people.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

Gabby wrote about what makes her who she is now in her personal poem.

Emily wrote about the firehouse where she spent a lot of her childhood.

Walter wrote about a childhood hotspot for him- Huntington Beach.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Today was a fantastic first day at the College Bound Writing Camp. We were greeted with a unique questionnaire to make our minds work. To loosen everyone up, we took a stroll outside where we “got down with our bad selves” and had some fun dancing and learning everyone’s names. We did a few more “group activities” before heading back inside. We circled up and shared some of our answers to the survey to further getting to know everyone and how they thought. After break, we read two articles, the second being a poem to ready us for our final activity. Both works made us reflect on our lives, and where we had come from. The day ended with some independent writing time, where we were able to either work on a poem about where we came from, or another piece we’d had our sights set on. All in all, our first day has totally left us excitedly anticipating the next two weeks to come!

This post was authored by Emily.