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write rhode island summer institute

Summer Program

Find your inner creative self.

The Write Rhode Island Creative Institute is a summer camp offered to young creatives in grades 7-12. With only 6-12 campers per session, students receive individualized attention and thrive in a supportive, collaborative environment. More than just a summer camp, our program fosters confidence and a love for creativity.

Programs Offered

Folded Book Summer Camp
Creative Institute Week #1
July 28, August 1, 2025
Register here
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Creative Institute Week #2
August 4-8, 2025
Register here
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Summer Writing Intensives
Coming soon

Morning Session 

Advanced Creative Writing - Feminism, Gender, & Writing the Body: In this course we will work towards recognizing learned biases and tropes surrounding gender and our roles in society that are commonly found in literature. We will analyze writings from French feminists such as Héléne Cixous, stories by American writer Kit Reed, and reflect upon what types of literature are assigned and traditionally valued by academic institutions. You will use this knowledge to express your own gender experience in your own body through flash fiction or short story format.

Movie in A Week! Over the course of one week, students will make a short film. We will study film, break down what goes into making a film, and then make a film. All in one week. All are welcome.

Magical Realism: Teens are invited to step into the world of fantasy and the extraordinary in this immersive one-week class. Think dreamy, mythic, and surreal. Through exploring captivating examples of magical realism, students will uncover the mechanics of the genre and craft their own spellbinding short story!

Here I Am: Spoken Word Poetry: Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? Spoken word gives us a space to speak straight from the heart. In this workshop, we will learn how to write spoken word poetry, as well as techniques for performing with confidence. Together we will use our voice and body to express our personal truths in the spirit of love and play.

Thrilling and Terrifying! Reading Your Writing for an Audience: Many writers yearn to share their writing with an audience. Reading your work aloud is so exciting – and so scary! This mini-workshop has two steps: First, you’ll write from a prompt to create a memoir story, then use that material to practice techniques for effective oral communication. In a supportive and positive environment, you’ll get individual coaching to help you feel more confident and comfortable reading your work for an audience.

Center Yourself for School & Wellness: The past several years have been quite turbulent (to say the least) in so many aspects of our lives. As we struggle through all the challenges we are faced with, the need to focus on wellness is perhaps greater than ever. This class offers the tools we can use to keep ourselves calm, grounded and creative, including mindfulness, journaling, community, physical activity, and communing with nature.

Executive Functioning 101: Students will build a tool kit of executive functioning skills by learning to optimize their individual strengths and employ tools that work for them. Students will work on organizing their belongings and physical spaces, managing their time with increased efficiency, improving task initiation and completion, and rethinking their personal habits and patterns for increased success. Students will also gain practice and tools to support planning, metacognition, working memory, and focus.

Painted Prints: In this course we will explore a multitude of basic and practical print making methods to produce images. This course will cover a new material each day like cyanotype, mono-printing, stenciling, and rubbings to build a foundation and toolbox of ways to replicate and reproduce an image or create a foundation to layer on top of. We will discuss pattern, texture, and layers to complicate and guide how our printmaking apparatuses are used. The students in this course will leave with a portfolio of prints and experiments that are easy to continue exploring and combining inside and outside of the classroom.

Lettering: The focus of this course will be exploring the art of calligraphy and introducing techniques for succeeding in letter art. We will graze the surface of the vast expanse and variety calligraphy provides, experimenting with both western and eastern techniques of making. We will traverse a variety of mediums including ink, pen, marker, and brushes to practice lettering with. Students will even get the chance to have fun creating lettering styles of their own to potentially use in future projects (or just to enjoy!).

How to Draw Real & Imaginary Landscapes: Learn how to observe the world around you through drawing and then use that knowledge to create fictional landscapes and cityscapes, scenes, backgrounds, and settings for your artwork. In this hands-on art class, you'll learn about the history of landscape art and the ideas and techniques behind it ranging from renaissance paintings to modern scifi concept art, as well as how artists use visual and conceptual world building to make the places they draw or paint feel believably full of interesting personality and characterful detail. We'll use a variety of drawing materials including pencils and ink, charcoal, and watercolor, with the option to bring your own digital tools. Sketchbook required.

Planters and Pots: In this class you will learn the foundational techniques of hand-building with clay to make planters that stand on a sill, suspend from a ceiling, and hang from a wall. All experience levels are welcome.

Afternoon Session

Travel Writing: Students will learn what travel writing is, how to interview a subject, and will write short travel pieces based on nearby attractions. This is an opportunity to gain experience as a writer. We will take short field trips to nearby tourist attractions, local businesses and fun places in the neighborhood.

Photography and Expository Writing: Students will learn and experiment with a number of the "Rules of Photography," critique existing photographs, and use their work as inspiration for expository pieces in paragraph and short essay form. Students will come away from class with at least two polished writing pieces and accompanying "inspiration photographs."

Advanced Creative Writing - Flash Fiction: The Hermit Crab: A hermit crab lives inside a shell, then moves to another as it grows. In flash fiction, a hermit crab is a narrative that lives inside another form, borrowing the shape for its story. In this advanced flash fiction course, we will read and write weird little stories in the shape of crossword puzzles, recipes, and Choose Your Own Adventures. We will scout the world for shapes, then make a home inside our strange new stories.

Story Basket: Participants will weave a small basket in which to carry inspirational ephemera or tools they need to be creative every day. Woven of fine reed, the basket can be utilitarian to fanciful in construction; left plain or painted and collaged to reflect the personality of the maker.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeons & Dragons is a collective storytelling game played amongst friends with dice telling you what you can and can't do. Over the course of one week, you are cordially invited to come play D&D, build a character, and go on an adventure. What makes this particular D&D game unique is that we will be taking a break over the course of the game to allow writers space to write the story of their character, with the hope that -- at the end of the week -- the story will continue. No previous D&D experience necessary. Extra readings available.

Drawing From Life: In this class you'll develop essential drawing skills using charcoal and ink.  We will delve into the fundamentals of how to start and practice drawing the things we see in front of us. Each day a new set of objects or things will be at the center of the room that we will attempt to draw from. This class will focus on our vision and observation becoming more coordinated with our hands, and will allow students to get comfortable setting up a drawing board and practicing drawing with a group that ranges in skill level. Through a combination of quick creative warm-up activities and longer drawing exercises, you'll learn to draw with more confidence and greater spontaneity. Beginners welcome.

Welcome to the World of Anime: Comics & Manga: If you love comics and illustration, including anime and manga, join us for this exciting program and discover how to draw characters in a variety of styles. You’ll learn the techniques you need to draw your favorite characters, and to invent characters of your own. We’ll cover drawing fundamentals such as perspective, linework, coloring techniques and how to draw facial expressions and figures in action. We’ll use different materials like colored pencils, markers, or digital art programs to create characters and plan a project of your own.

Summer Ceramics Slam: In this class, students will learn ceramic hand-building techniques. Students will create functional and nonfunctional ceramic art. Learn how to create with coils, slab construction, and clay pinching methods. Students will create their own pieces and learn how to glaze finished artwork. All skill levels welcome. 

Summer Reading Club: Whether you have a summer reading assignment or just want to dive into a good book, this is the place for you! Enjoy peaceful individual and group reading time, both indoors and outdoors, with the chance to share and discuss the stories you love.

Podcasting: Coming soon.

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Morning Session

Bite-Sized Stories: Flash Fiction: It's not a poem. It's not a short story. It's flash!
In this course, we will explore the world of flash, the bite-sized story. We will consider flash from all over the world to understand what gives this tiny story its power. You will write your own flash as we read our stories aloud and support each other with constructive feedback. You will leave with multiple stories of your own, as well as resources to keep reading and writing in the future.

Movie in A Week! Over the course of one week, students will make a short film. We will study film, break down what goes into making a film, and then make a film. All in one week. All are welcome.

LGBTQ+ Short Stories**coming soon**

Impressionism and Free Verse Poetry: Students will learn the history of the Impressionist Movement and explore the works of Impressionist painters. They will then learn to define, identify, and write Free Verse poetry. Students will come away from this class with at least one completed piece of artwork and a number of polished poems.

Thrilling and Terrifying! Reading Your Writing for an Audience: Many writers yearn to share their writing with an audience. Reading your work aloud is so exciting – and so scary! This mini-workshop has two steps: First, you’ll write from a prompt to create a memoir story, then use that material to practice techniques for effective oral communication. In a supportive and positive environment, you’ll get individual coaching to help you feel more confident and comfortable reading your work for an audience.

Center Yourself for School & Wellness: The past several years have been quite turbulent (to say the least) in so many aspects of our lives. As we struggle through all the challenges we are faced with, the need to focus on wellness is perhaps greater than ever. This class offers the tools we can use to keep ourselves calm, grounded and creative, including mindfulness, journaling, community, physical activity, and communing with nature.

En Plein Air: En Plein Air  is a French expression meaning “in the open air”, and refers to the act of painting outdoors with the artist's subject in full view. Students will get the chance to experiment with the historical practice using drawing mediums such as pastel, charcoal, and gouache. Every day, weather permitting, will consist of making art outside, drawing what we see. Subjects such as composition, color, and historical landscape artwork will be discussed during the time spent making and creating. Students will end the class with a small but mighty portfolio of Providence landscape drawings.

Sketchbook Marathon: Imagine, Collect, Reconfigure, Disrupt, Invent—In this class we will attempt to fill as many sketchbook pages as we can. We will explore and experiment in whatever space we find with an array of wet and dry, color and monochrome, photographic, printmaking, and collage techniques to practice and play with art and image making inside of one sketchbook. Through a combination of warm ups, demos, shifting location, and collective drawing time designed by and for the students we will explore how the environment you draw in, what tools you combine, and how the sketchbook can become a limitless place for fun and development for artistic process and personal art style. The goal of this course is to enrich a group of young artist’s sketchbooks with new perspectives, art materials, and feedback. Each day we will work together to make the course into a playground for creativity and exposure to new things.

Planters and Pots: In this class you will learn the foundational techniques of hand-building with clay to make planters that stand on a sill, suspend from a ceiling, and hang from a wall.  All experience levels are welcome.

Afternoon Session

Here I Am: Spoken Word Poetry: Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? Spoken word gives us a space to speak straight from the heart. In this workshop, we will learn how to write spoken word poetry, as well as techniques for performing with confidence. Together we will use our voice and body to express our personal truths in the spirit of love and play.

Beginner Screenwriting: Students will analyze scenes from age-appropriate films and screenplays, revise existing scenes to construct alternate ways to tell a story, and then plot out and write their own short scripts with a focus on structure and action over dialogue (show: don't tell!).

Advanced Creative Writing: Coming soon.

Fairies, Fables, Folklore: Coming soon.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeons & Dragons is a collective storytelling game played amongst friends with dice telling you what you can and can't do. Over the course of one week, you are cordially invited to come play D&D, build a character, and go on an adventure. What makes this particular D&D game unique is that we will be taking a break over the course of the game to allow writers space to write the story of their character, with the hope that -- at the end of the week -- the story will continue. No previous D&D experience necessary. Extra readings available.

Painted Prints: In this course we will explore a multitude of basic and practical print making methods to produce images. This course will cover a new material each day like cyanotype, mono-printing, stenciling, and rubbings to build a foundation and toolbox of ways to replicate and reproduce an image or create a foundation to layer on top of. We will discuss pattern, texture, and layers to complicate and guide how our printmaking apparatuses are used. The students in this course will leave with a portfolio of prints and experiments that are easy to continue exploring and combining inside and outside of the classroom.

Portraiture:This class will be an introduction to all things portrait- using drawing to further understand the complexities of the face. We will build basic skills in the art of representational portrait making, delving into topics such as facial proportion and anatomy, expression, and likeness. Students will use each other or themselves as references to practice during class time, and will end with the knowledge to begin incorporating portraiture to their artwork in the future. They will leave the class with numerous portrait and facial anatomy sketches as well as one or two more established portrait drawings.

Cast Off to Collection: This class will focus on reusing and recycling of otherwise discarded clothing. Looking at vintage, and thrifted clothing with an open mind, we will find ways to update and style them into useful and relevant pieces, as well as keeping them out of the landfill. Class will focus on sustainability, creativity, and individuality. Studying vintage and contemporary fashion and looking at what's available from the thrift stores, students will make mood boards and sketches of a collection that use elements of the thrifted garments.  Students will also come up with new creative techniques that utilize the fabrics from the second hand pieces. Practicing the basics of deconstructing, alteration, and reconstruction, as well as surface design, such as appliqué, pleating, quilting, smocking. This is a hands-on class, all levels welcome. Students will keep a fashion journal, and researching and developing inspiration

Intro to Comics: Coming soon.

Have fun with Write Rhode Island this summer

Create, connect, and thrive!

Words in Pictures Program photo

A TYPICAL DAY

9:00 Students arrive and sign in.

9:15-11:30 Morning class begins.

11:30-12:15  Brown bag lunch and games, writing, movement, reading

12:30-2:30 Afternoon class

2:45 Announcements/Goodbye

 

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Fees and Payments

$250 per student (1 week)

All fees must be paid in full before the session begins.

Questions?
Scholarship Opportunities
Write Rhode Island offers discounts and need-based scholarships available towards all sessions.
Complete this form.