826 Valencia is a fun and inspiring place to come with a group of students to work on writing. Our space is free and available to teachers in the Bay area, grades 1–12, for field trips of all kinds.
This is our most popular field trip. Students are charged with the task of writing, as a group, a story, with the help of 826 volunteers. While the students decide on character and plot points, an 826 volunteer is typing the story into a computer, which is projected onto the wall. The students can track the story’s progress, and make corrections as needed. Meanwhile, the story is being illustrated by a professional artist. As the pages are finished, they’re being copied — one set for each student — and collated in our back production room. Thus, as soon as the class finishes creating the story, we’re ready to bind the books with our in-house tape bindery. The students illustrate their covers, add their photo to the back (for an About the Author page), and go home with personalized books created as a class. This field trip teaches students about collaboration, self-editing, the bookmaking process, and elements of successful storytelling. And it’s really a good time for all. Recommended for students 7–11 years old.
Just like in our Storytelling & Bookmaking field trip, students will collaborate on a story. This story, however, will be in the form of a script which is written for the stage or the screen. Students will learn to craft scenes and write engaging dialogue, while a professional artist creates storyboards to accompany the text. Your students will leave with a bound script, all ready to send to Hollywood or Broadway. Recommended for middle-and high-school students.
826 draws upon our wealth of Bay Area writers for this field trip. Teachers prepare students by introducing them to the author’s work ahead of time. At 826, students will be treated to a short interactive presentation by the author, who will then answer all questions from the students. Recommended for students of all ages.
Our professional staff and tutors introduce students to basic journalistic concepts. These include ethics, hard/soft leads, editing copy, understanding the inverted triangle, crafting catchy headlines, and more. Recommended for students 11–18 years old.
Classes come together to create a publication from scratch. With attention and support from our tutors, 826 binds and publishes their work in a formal and professional format. Recommended for students 6–18 years old.
We can, and have, accommodated many different requests from teachers. One of our very first field trips concerned the Gold Rush, even though we had no particular expertise in the fields of gold mining or panning. Nevertheless, we had a volunteer dress in period garb, and another volunteer, with the help of a small class of sixth graders, interviewed the would-be 49er on all aspects of his life. The class then filled out custom-made booklets full of Gold Rush information and exercises. Recommended for students of all ages.
