Today, Convent and Stuart Hall sophomores attended a writing workshop led by Kevin Maillard on personal writing. Maillard is a professional writer and a professor of law at Syracuse University.
Kevin Maillard is an author most noted for his children’s picture book, “Fry Bread.” He also writes in many other different genres and forms, according to head of school Rachel Simpson.
“We wanted to bring Kevin Maillard in because he has a body of work that spans scholarly research, fiction writing, and newspaper journalism,” Simpson said. “We thought that it would be nice to bring in someone who has such a range and capacity of writing and who knows how to deliver a message,”
The workshop took place during D block. Half of the sophomore class attended the workshop before lunch, and the second half attended after lunch, according to sophomore Elizabeth Fox.
“This was an interesting way of dividing up the time periods and it was efficient,” Fox said. “I think we could’ve had the whole class in there, but I also liked how it was separated as well,”
During the workshop, Maillard presented ideas ranging from the concept of the American Dream and the living situations of Indigenous people during the 19th century. He also brought up people of color in film and media and the Cherokee people migrating to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, according to sophomore Julia McKinnon.
After the presentation, he discussed the idea of interval writing to the students. He would give the students a prompt, and give them a set amount of time to freely write on the topic, and correct it after the writing was finished.
“I liked the timed-write concept of interval writing,” McKinnon said. “I had never tried writing in this way, so it was a lot of fun to try something new,”
Maillard visited Convent and Stuart Hall a year ago and was welcomed back this year for residency, according to sacredsf libguides. Just a week ago, Maillard also presented writing workshops to the Convent Elementary School students of all ages.
“We were very impressed with how Kevin connected to the students when he was here a year ago,” Simpson said. “We wanted to invite him back so that he could share his presentations to other students.”
