Currey Ingram Academy Lower School Division Head Jane Hannah wanted to offer a camp that would help both struggling and competent young writers continue to move forward with their skills; yet, she did not have a curriculum for a two‐week camp of this kind.

She knew where to turn.

Hannah approached Karen Harris, Currey Ingram Professor of Special Education and Literacy at Peabody College. Harris had recently taught a writing class to Currey Ingram parents and has collaborated school administrators on a number of other projects. She is the author of a number of writing books and often teaches writing  strategies to students and teachers in area public schools.

“Karen is at the top of her field,” Hannah said. “Her self-regulated strategy development approach is proven to work for students a variety of backgrounds and challenges. I knew she would be the ideal expert to help us design the camp.”

Harris said yes. She and doctoral students Karin Sandmel and Michael Hebert began working with Hannah and Lower School Assistant Division Head Christina Claxton in the early spring.

“We had done a lot of work in this area, but never a camp,” Harris said. “We were excited about the opportunity to do this as a pilot project and as an extension of our other work. We really saw this as a win‐win for both organizations.”

Throughout the spring, the group met several times to draft lesson plans, establish a daily camp schedule, and plan ways to make the camp “fun” for even those students who do not like to write.

The team decided that the daily schedule would begin with a morning meeting and a group sentence-combining activity. Students would then break into small groups to work on SRSD report-writing skills. Every day, campers would have the chance to sit in the “Author’s Chair” and share their work with peers. Campers also would be coached about ways to provide appropriate peer feedback. Students would then rotate through creative writing classes that would include poetry writing, story writing and comic strip creation.

Throughout the camp, students would set their own goals. Progress would be shared with parents at the end of camp.

The two‐week camp opened on June 15. Six instructors, including Hebert and Currey Ingram teachers Claxton, Kristin Montoya, Yolanda Mara and Anne Moore taught 15 campers. Sandmel rotated through the breakout groups to help model strategies and tweak the curriculum from day to day.

“The kids loved the comic-strip writing – even those who do not like to write,” Claxton said. “Writing is often wrapped into reading instruction in elementary school. This does not always leave ample time for writing work – especially for students who may struggle with reading. It was great to have the chance to offer this much continuous work on written expression for this age group.”

Claxton went on to share that the SRSD method of goal-setting, monitoring and creating self-instructions helped campers guide their own work and is an approach that can help them across other content areas in school.

“We were so fortunate to partner with Dr. Harris and her team and to see their methods in action,” Claxton added. “We have used their books for years and incorporate a lot of SRSD strategies in our curriculum – but this camp really took it to another level for these campers.”

Currey Ingram Academy is a K‐12 college‐preparatory school for students with average to superior intelligence who reach their fullest potential in a personalized learning environment, such as those with ADHD, dyslexia and other language‐based learning differences. The school was founded in 1968 as Westminster School of Nashville, then offering grades K‐8. The current campus opened in 2002. Located on an 83-acre farm in Brentwood, Currey Ingram Academy draws students from 12 mid-state counties.  More information is available online at
www.curreyingram.org.

Contact: laura.braam@curreyingram.org