About Workshop

Introduction to Student Writing
by Lynette Benton, Teen Writing Instructor

For the past several years, I’ve been fortunate to lead the Teen Creative Writing classes at Robbins Library, in Arlington, Massachusetts. As part of those classes, our teens produce extraordinary stories and poems. Now, for the first time, you will be able to read their work for yourself.

In our class meetings, the teen writers read their work aloud and offer appreciation and thoughtful suggestions to one another, so that everyone’s work is improved.

We focus on the challenges that all writers—even famous ones—face. For example:
  • Ways to draw readers in at the beginning of a story, chapter, or poem.
  • How to use powerful, engaging words, and avoid weak ones.
  • Methods for incorporating images and sense impressions, such as sounds and smells, into the writing to help readers actually enter the world of the story or poem.

As you will see from their writings, the Robbins teen writers successfully use these and other techniques to entertain their readers.

Our classes are fun, and I’m thrilled to be a part of them. I always look forward to finding out what the teens have written. You’re about to see why.

Our Winter 2014 Writers
by Lynette Benton

Here are the works that several of the Robbins Library Teen Writers wrote during the winter of 2014. As you will see, their work exhibits a level of creative expression seldom seen in writers so young. Each of the works expresses the writer’s own unique style and vision; none of the pieces resemble any of the others. The teen writers achieved that critical element of strong writing: originality.

Each of the teens focused on improving one aspect of their writing, such as inserting more suspense into their work or strengthening descriptions so that readers could easily visualize both the environment and the action.

The writers presented their work in a public reading in the Robbins Community Room in April 2014.

We invite you to join the Robbins Library Teen Writers in the fall. (You will be able to register for the classes here on the Robbins site shortly.) Classes begin on Monday, September 8, and run for six (6) alternating Mondays. We meet at 6:00 in front of the elevator in the main lobby. I hope to see you there.

Now, sit back and enjoy the students’ writing. Prepare yourself for mystery, mischief, and the macabre!

Holaweeno- by Cole Kraus
When Arrows Fly- by Emma Kraus
"Concert Kill", "Protected by the Predator", and "The Abomination" by Hunter Spadafora
The Advanced Society by Ian Bernardin
The Writer by Isaac Wilde

If you would like to read all the works by our writers, please click here.

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