VSA Future’s High School Writing Workshop: Creating Paths for Style VSA Future’s High School Writing Workshop: Creating Paths for Style By Rachel, Grade 9 The VSA Future Summer Advanced Writing Workshop is a combined three piece writing technique guide for high schoolers. The workshop covers skills to write argumentative essays, narrative statements and literary analysis essays. Skills taught by the instructor for narrative short stories include rich, descriptive figurative language, using dialogue effectively and utilizing sensory details to show action. Building up tension, focusing on details, and appropriate pacing are also important parts specified in this portion of the workshop. For the argumentative essays, techniques such as strong claims, powerful reasoning and evidence, as well as emotional language and connection to the audience are highlighted with intensive study and feedback. By having an emotional connection with your reader, you can easily develop advanced opinion pieces. Engaging your audience with a hook is also an emphasis throughout this unit. Writing a literary analysis for characters can be tough. However, experienced instructors at VSA Future are adaptable and agile when advising students during feedback times. Having key supportive evidence throughout the analysis to defend assertions and findings is vital. Without having the evidence included in the analysis, none of the claims would be valid. After attending all six weeks and completing all three writing tasks, I have really felt my skills and techniques improve with each draft of my essays. The VSA Future teaching staff features patient and willing instructors who work with talented students to bring out the strengths in their writing. With dedication and support, student writing levels can improve and VSA Future can help with that. Thanks to VSA Future, my writing, reading, and vocabulary skills have all been pushed to reach their full potential!
