41. High School: Creative Writing

The Creative Writing Program takes its inspiration from Dalton’s motto “Go Forth Unafraid;” it helps students realize that they can write more beautifully than they ever thought they could.

At Dalton, any freshmen student could begin one of the Creative Writing Program’s introductory level workshop courses. That same student could end high school in the Senior Thesis workshop with a chapbook of poems in their back pocket, having already finished a novella in an Advanced Fiction Writing class just the year before.

Rarely does one know just how influential an experience will prove to be in the moment in which it occurs. But as I sat in creative writing classes for seven of eight semesters of high school, I knew that my life would be remarkably different because of them.

These workshops instilled an unceasing love of writing that would not go away. What other high school student is given the space and resources to write a two-act play in the span of a semester? How do I tell of those afternoons, just last spring, during which I began to take myself and my aspirations seriously? Or the pride I felt upon hearing my peers’ work read aloud at the annual Spring Writing Gala in my final month at Dalton? I smile as I recall the excitement with which my peers entered the room over the course of those few months, eager to discuss another student’s work with the same enthusiasm as if it were one’s own.

The Creative Writing Program takes its inspiration from Dalton’s motto ‘Go Forth Unafraid,’ and helps students to realize they can write more beautifully than they ever thought they could.

Taken from writing by Kathy Franco ’17 and Pearce Green ’16
—Chris Hood, High School English Teacher and Creative Writing Program Coordinator