It's the end of November, which means that it's time once again to attend the Whitewater Creative Writing Festival.  Étude has been attending the Festival for over a decade, but this was the first trip for most of our attending students this year.  Fourteen 9th, 10th, and 11th graders hopped on the bus and spent the day on the UW-Whitewater campus, interacting with peers from across the Midwest, workshopping their writing, and learning from some of the finest writers in Wisconsin. 

One new feature this year allowed high schoolers to attend a college-level course in full.  "It was surprisingly similar to how we teach at Étude," said freshman Alex Moon.  "It was a lot about observing and talking about what we did or didn't like."  The Étudians who submitted work were excited to receive feedback on their work, and one student, junior Camille Staats, also received a first-place award in the "Essay" category for her piece, "Guilt and the Human Experience." Everyone also enjoyed the keynote speaker, Ike Holten, and one student told us "The things he said about being a writer from a minority community are really important and really accurate."