Workshop Details

July 7 – 11, 2025

For incoming 1st through 12th graders*

Program runs 8:00am-12:00pm each day
Drop off begins at 7:45am. Pick up starts at 12pm.

 
Location:
Texas A&M University – Texarkana
7101 University Avenue
Texarkana, Texas

*Students must be age six or older by July 7, 2025.

*Workshop rooms, offices, and activities will take place in the University Center (UC) building, second floor.

*Drop off/pick up take place in the small parking lot northwest of the UC building

* Those registering after 06/26/2025 might not receive this year's official shirt or may receive a slightly larger size than requested.

Workshop Details*

Each young writer will receive the workshop reader, writing supplies, t-shirt (wear it to Friday’s celebration), and an anthology (mailed) with the best of each writer’s creations.

Incoming 1st/2nd Graders: Adventure and Imagination

Our youngest writers will find adventure in their imaginations through two books, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne, the first in the Magic Tree House series.

Following the themes of adventure and imagination, young authors will create illustrated worlds and stories and poems of their own to enjoy and share.

Incoming 3rd/4th Graders: Into the Wild

Incoming third and fourth graders will read, and perhaps create their own wilderness adventures with Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and/or Robert Louise Stevenson’s Treasure Island, illuminating the texts through multiple means: drawings, watercolors, maps, comics, etc. They will immerse themselves in creativity.

Incoming 5th/6th Graders: Perfect Places

Our advancing, young writers will explore perfect places with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and/or The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. From these inspiring novels, the authors will then create their own perfect places, whether a cave, a house in the forest, a fantastical hobbit hole, or the top of a cloud.

Incoming 7th/8th Graders: Exploring Culture

America is a quilt of culture, and our more advanced writers will explore two of these through The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisnaros and/or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexi. Writers will then work on their own stories that reflect their culture, whether the beans and cornbread staples and family dinners (like my childhood upbringing) or the life in a small town, on a farm, on a ranch, living in the city, or life in the country. They will work on creative projects that reflect a certain way of life, whether a story, poem, play, poster, or something else entirely, creativity will abound.

Incoming 9th – 12th Graders: Travel Writing and Research

These emerging young authors will explore travel and travel writing with Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar and/or E.  L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. From here inspiration will carry them to their own plans for future adventures both at home and abroad.

*YWW director staff reserves the right to recombine workshop groups based on student ability, participant enrollment, and/or staff availability.

To register for the Young Writers' Workshop, visit our registration page.
*Please ensure all information is accurate, as it will determine participant placement, t-shirt received, etc. 

Inquiries concerning summer 2025 programming can be directed to blancaster@tamut.edu.