Writing from the Heart: How the Lycée Nurtures Creative Writers

Conversations with Meredith HOLT, English Coordinator in Primary Campuses and Elizabeth MAXIMOV, Lead of the English Department.

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From Gr1 to Gr5, English is taught for around six hours a week (not counting US Math time from Gr3 onward). In a bilingual curriculum where in Primary school French takes center stage, English classroom time is precious. Yet it is also part of something bigger: the Lycée's Living Humanities signature program, an education that treats language not as a subject to be studied, but as a living art to be practiced, performed, and shared.

Ask any student from Gr1 to 12, what they remember from English class, and somewhere in the answer, you'll likely find a poem, a short story, or a piece of writing that surprised even the person who wrote it. Creative writing is not an afterthought here: it is woven into the fabric of the English program from the beginning to the very end of the bilingual Lycée journey.

It Starts With a Sentence

Long before students craft short stories or enter writing competitions, they are learning something more fundamental: what a sentence actually is. In first grade, teacher Meredith HOLT begins with what she calls a "kernel sentence”, a who and a what. From there, students learn to expand: adding a where, a why, a how. It sounds simple, but the method is deliberate.

The approach of the English Department is based on a curriculum called the Writing Revolution. Introduced across all primary grade levels, it gives students a shared, explicit framework for academic writing. One they will build on, year after year. "By the time they get to middle school, they've seen it since first grade and they're able to really organize their thoughts," HOLT explains. The familiarity with the process supports the students in their own writing.

But academic writing is only part of the picture. Each grade level also has its signature creative projects: a biography project in second grade, a state fair project in third, a gold rush creative writing piece in fourth, a women's history project in fifth. And in first grade this year, something new and entirely student-driven: a writing bingo challenge, born out of the success of a reading bingo earlier in the year. "We wanted to do something that wasn't reading," HOLT says. "Something a bit more creative, and freeing." And it worked, students who were just learning how to write crafted dozens of 3-sentence stories about their vacations, friends, dreams etc.

A Thread Through Every Year

The creativity doesn't stop as students get older, it deepens. Once they move to Middle School and to the Ortega campus, the creative writing program continues to grow with them.

 "Every year, in every grade, students have an opportunity for some sort of creative writing," explains Elizabeth MAXIMOV, who has been teaching English at the school for over ten years. Each year, students are first exposed to the craft, studying how published writers work, before being given their own task. The scaffolding matters: teachers circulate, offer feedback, and give students time in class to develop their work before submitting.

As students move through the grades, so does the complexity of what is asked of them. A short poem becomes a longer story; a simple narrative gives way to something that plays with irony, Gothic atmosphere, or the emotional tension found in writers like Edgar Allan Poe or Shirley Jackson. This year, she teaches in Gr10, 11 and 12, and can contribute to the progression.

 "It becomes much more developed," MAXIMOV says. "More dramatic. A little more difficult to grasp, unless you've seen it done well." 

That's the key: students always write in relation to something they've read. The creative assignment grows naturally out of the literary unit, giving students both a model and a launching pad.

Sharing the Work: From Morning Meeting to Open Mic

One of the things that makes writing come alive at the primary level is the emphasis on the audience. In first grade, students share their bingo writing pieces each morning. At the end of the month, the class holds what HOLT describes as an "open mic café": students choose their best piece, sit on a stool, and read it aloud to their classmates, with tea and biscuits to mark the occasion.

"When you watch them read their own work, you can just see it on their face, they're so excited and proud to share their thoughts," HOLT says. The audience responds too: questions, reactions, a favorite ice cream flavor offered in solidarity. “It kind of becomes a social experience."

This culture of sharing continues through Middle and High school. For students who want more, two Creative Writing Clubs,one in Middle school and one in High school, offer a space to keep writing for the love of it. The Middle school club produces an annual booklet of poems and short stories. The High school club, led by teacher Livingston MILLER, goes further: each year, students collaborate with visual arts students to create a full literary magazine, complete with original artwork.

Beyond the Classroom: Competitions

The department also actively encourages students to submit work to outside competitions. Scholastic is a regular fixture. For the NCTE writing competition, the school is allotted a single candidate, typically a junior, selected through a careful process that weighs the quality of the work and the student's willingness to put themselves forward.

"I try to stay out of it unless they really need help," MAXIMOV says. "I really want them to be recognized for their work. Especially with creative writing." The results speak for themselves: recent years have brought consistent recognition, including students who have been honored more than once across their time at the school.

The Secret Ingredient: Reading

So what distinguishes the students who flourish as writers from their peers? Both teachers point to the same answer: they read!

"The students who read tend to have an easier time with expression," MAXIMOV observes. "The brain has seen so much literature that it almost becomes natural, not copying, but mimicking a style." Students who read for pleasure, who keep reading through Middle school and beyond, are the ones whose writing blossoms. The recommendation is clear: read widely, read different genres, and if time is short, keep a book of poetry nearby.

Writing in Many Languages, Thinking in Many Dimensions

One of the particular strengths of the Lycée's student body is its linguistic and cultural richness. Students navigate at least two - sometimes three or even more - languages at home and at school. Both teachers see this as an asset, though one that could be even more deliberately cultivated.

In the Primary grades, the writing bingo challenge was open to any language, and in a previous poetry project, students translated their poems into Portuguese and Spanish. "One student wrote it first in Spanish and then we translated it," HOLT recalls. She adds that she'd love to do more cross-linguistic work in the future.

In the upper grades, MAXIMOV notes that multilingual students bring an especially attuned ear to literary language. "They can appreciate the difference in the sound of a language, the way a poet chooses one word over another. And they make connections: 'Oh, Baudelaire uses nature the same way.' They bring all of that to their reading and their writing."

Writing as a Human Act

Perhaps the most striking observation, shared by both teachers, is also the simplest. The writing that stays with you, the writing that matters, tends to begin somewhere personal.

When MAXIMOV is asked what student work has stayed with her over the years, she doesn't reach for the most technically polished or the most prize-winning. What stands out is how often students anchor their writing in someone they love. "A grandfather. A grandmother. Someone who has influenced them in their personal life." Whether it's a memoir, a poem, or a short story, the best work tends to start in that place, real and true.

The goal, as both teachers frame it, is not to produce professional writers. They want their students to think of themselves as writers and have the confidence, the tools, and above all the desire to keep putting words on a page.

"I want them to walk away being like: I am a writer," HOLT says. "I can write creative pieces, I can write essays." That identity, built sentence by sentence from first grade onward, may be one of the most lasting things the school gives them.