The Waring Writing Program is intended to help students develop and discover an authentic, personal voice, through learning the fundamentals for effective writing of poetry, stories, dialogues, plays, and personal essays. Regardless of the genre, they write every week of their Waring career, and by doing so develop both imagination and self-knowledge as well as the skills of writing. The Writing Program helps our students to speak personally and memorably at Convocation and Graduation every year. More important still, it helps them to develop "inner resources" and the skills of writing that they otherwise might never have discovered.
Writing Department Chair
Writing, like any discipline, is partly a matter of habit, so regular writing habits are established from the start. The classes meet twice a week. A student learns quickly that work is not written only for the teacher; instead, writing is presented to, and critiqued by both peers and instructors. Audience, in fact, is at the center of the Waring Writing Program. Over time, the writing class audience becomes sophisticated in their critical comments; writers, in turn, increasingly understand how their work affects the audience. Whether a student has just entered Core (Grades 6 and 7) Program or is about to complete the senior year at Waring, writing classes are workshops: students write, critique each other, revise, polish, and create portfolios.
Waring students are often recognized for the excellence of their work. Our students are frequent prize winners at the Beverly Public Library Teen Poetry Contest each year. Every year, in March, Waring holds a Young Writers Conference, drawing published authors from around the country and high school writers from the Boston area, including some of our own students.
©2021 Waring School. All rights reserved.