My creative writing classroom is a jovial, laid-back workshop environment. My students work independently or collaboratively on their writing, but come together in a professional, collegiate-like setting to workshop their writing.
The community is tight knit with a strong, rich history.
My high school is rural, of just under 800 students, and about half the students qualify for free and reduced lunch. The city is very working class, and we still have students who are first generation college students. My creative writing class pulls kids in grades 10 through 12 of a variety of ability levels.
My Project
In order to become a better writer, one must read. Despite getting students in creative writing who "love to write," many of them have never read poetry outside their regular English classes. By getting these materials, students will have a chance to read a wide variety of poems and poets. But instead of assigning poems from the anthologies, I want students to spend time with them, find pieces they love, and report back to the class. This forces them to study what they truly love about poetry. Kooser's "Poetry Home Repair Manual" will be used to get students thinking critically about how they write.
This will improve my classroom because we currently have no textbook for this class.
In the past, I've tried to half haphazardly find text examples to provide students, but they were minimal and hard to draw together. Text anthologies put many examples in students' hands, and will allow me to give them more freedom to explore multiple writers and expose them to new voices.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Lancaster and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
