Katie Goforth   Fairview Middle School   8th Grade Writing Class   October 16, 2002

The Williamson County Schools Gifted Education Department has received an Arts Grant entitled "Valuing Tennessee's Harpeth River Through the Arts."  The purpose of the grant is to allow professional writers and artists to work with middle school and high school students to develop their individual writing styles and artistic expression.  

Writer and naturalist Rita Venable conducted a writing workshop for eighth grade students from Fairview Middle School.  The workshop, entitled A Sense of Place, was held in the beautiful setting of the new Outdoor Classroom at Bowie Nature Park. 

For the workshop, each student used photographs and sensory word descriptors to recall a place that holds strong personal memories.   Ms. Venable worked with the students to develop essays that express the importance of the memory through imagery, figurative language and other literary devices.