about the shambLES
After teaching for more than a decade in Prince George's County and Baltimore County, and serving as the English Department Chair for eight years at a Baltimore County private high school, Sam Farmer launched The Shambles in 2021. Though creative writing is often a featured part of high school curriculums, the lack of extracurricular outlets for aspiring writers, as well as the limitations on writing classes in a high school setting, prompted Farmer to establish a new opportunity for motivated, young writers.
While classes mirror the workshop format of liberal arts colleges, in that every student must regularly produce and share their work for peer critique, The Shambles’ curriculum is unique.
There are a variety of opportunities to study in small groups or privately, including a signature twelve-week course for committed writers. Over the course of this twelve-week session, the workshop follows a sequence of specific units of study (e.g. dramatic action, point of view, tonal command); every unit upholds the same trifold premise: study examples of masterful technique, practice exercises that emphasize the development of that technique; produce a (twice-revised) piece of writing that emphasizes the involvement of that technique. Within a twelve-week session, each student will complete three original pieces for the workshop critique (for further details on the format please contact The Shambles). The twelve-week sessions culminate in a (voluntary) public reading of student work at the Ivy Bookshop, Baltimore’s finest independent bookstore. The Shambles offers a tiered program, so that students who complete one twelve-week session may apply for the next, which continues with new units of study.