| New England Literature Program |
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The program takes place at Camp Wohelo on Sebago Lake in Maine . For six and a half weeks, 40 students and 12 staff members live and work together, reading New England authors, writing, and studying aspects of New England culture and landscape. In addition to formal academic work in literature and writing, staff and students offer non-credit instruction in canoeing, camping, art, and nature studies. Students teach or co-teach classes as part of the NELP program. Several three-day hiking and camping trips are also part of the regular NELP curriculum. NELP'S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY The stated belief of NELP is that, "Diverse kinds of learning are all valuable and pleasurable." In other words, NELP purports that intellectual and physical challenges are often parallel and that each kind of learning reinforces other kinds. However, critics of NELP have suggested that this is little more than an excuse for students to have a fun extended spring break at their parent's expense under the guise of college, and point out that there is very little diversity in the students who attend NELP, the majority being white, female English majors. NELP claims to be a cooperative community. All participants belong to work groups. Work responsibilities rotate among the groups, which prepare meals, wash dishes and pots, and clean common areas. NELP begins with a work day during which equipment is unpacked and camp set up, and it ends with another work day to pack it all up again. THE ACADEMIC PROGRAM NELP students earn 8 hours of credit. Although NELP’s academic work is claimed to be taught as a single integrated academic experience, the credits appear on transcripts as three separate courses. The program emphasizes the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne , Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , Emily Dickinson , Frederick Douglass , Sarah Orne Jewett , Robert Frost , Galway Kinnell , Louise Gluck , and/or other 18th through 20th century writers of various backgrounds. NELP offers creative writing workshops, but most writing is done in a journal. Journal writing is required and is claimed to be central to NELP education. The journals are both personal and academic. Every NELP participant belongs to a journal group, which meets twice a week for discussion. Writing assignments of various sorts are connected with the readings, and they are supplemented by writing on topics of the students’ own choosing. The courses at NELP are graded. The academic program requires completion of a reading list, active work in the journal, and vigorous participation in classes and in the journal group. NELP ALUMNUS/ALUMNA The NELP program has had participants who have gone on to careers in writing. Among those are Bruce Weber, writer for the New York Times , and Ryan Walsh, assistant editor of Rivendell literary arts journal. Books written by former participants of NELP include Snow Island by Katherine Towler and Voelker's Pond: A Robert Traver Legacy by Ed Wargin. REFERENCES
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