Online This Summer: The IWT Off-Road Writing Workshop
New Roads High School, Santa Monica, California
New Roads High School and Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking (IWT) are pleased to introduce the IWT Off-Road Writing Workshop at New Roads High School. Modeled on Bard College’s Language & Thinking Program, established in 1982, this weeklong writing workshop cultivates fluency of expression in writing and speaking that is so necessary for college or university. The workshop will be held online and hosted by New Roads High School in Santa Monica, CA, an institution known for its progressive and diverse curriculum. In small groups of 12 to 15, students will work together in two-hour morning and afternoon sessions from Monday to Friday, August 2–6, 2021. Workshops will run in Pacific Daylight Time.WHY THE OFF-ROAD WRITING WORKSHOP?
In this weeklong workshop, you will explore contemporary and classic texts from literature, philosophy, the social sciences, and the visual and performing arts, and write and reflect about them in serious, speculative, and playful ways. The work you do here will help you become a more nuanced and mindful reader and an inventive, expansive writer. As you read and write alongside other curious-minded people, you will learn new methods for engaging interdisciplinary texts and innovative strategies that will stretch your intellectual and creative abilities. Most importantly, you will work together to question both the texts and your own assumptions. Group projects can include short films, readings, and digital media zines. Texts will include such authors as: Anna Akhmatova, James Baldwin, Anne Carson, Teju Cole, Mahmoud Darwish, Natalie Diaz, Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Primo Levi, Audre Lorde, Michel de Montaigne, Sarah Ruhl, Edward Said, Carmen Giménez Smith, and Wallace Stevens.
You will write individually and in collaboration with others, and become aware of the choices you make in your own writing—from word choices in the expression of ideas to the opportunities offered by different forms. You will deepen your own learning in a community that values educational depth more than simply having the right answer. Working on a variety of projects in writing and other formats, workshops meet in the morning and afternoon in small classes and in one-on-one conferences with faculty.
Over the course of the week, you will build from informal “risky” writing to more finished pieces for a portfolio of interdisciplinary—and multidisciplinary—work.
DATES: Aug. 2–6, 2021. Monday–Friday. 9am–2pm Pacific Daylight Time. This time includes lunch and Zoom breaks.
WHO CAN APPLY: High school students who have completed 9th, 10th, or 11th grades.
DEADLINES: Students can submit applications until July 23, 2021.
RATES: $675 for the week; $607.50 Early Bird rate (early bird deadline July 2). Partial financial aid is available. To apply for financial aid, please contact Molly Livingston, Program Administrator at iwt@bard.edu.
FACULTY: Bard IWT instructors hold advanced degrees in their fields and extensive training in Bard’s innovative approach to interdisciplinary inquiry.
DAILY SCHEDULE (Pacific Daylight Time):
9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - Workshop Session 1 (with 15-minute midmorning break)
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Lunch
12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. - Workshop Session 2 (with 15-minute midafternoon break)