A recent tragic event in our community has left students, families, and teachers sad, devastated, and confused. For some students, poetry may be a way to unlock their feelings and emotions, expressing them through writing without the strict rules of formal written expression.
This workshop will include students in grades three through six across all the schools in our district, a rural community in Connecticut.
We share a common vision for learning and our student populations are similar. We have students with diverse learning styles and needs including gifted, special needs and ELL students. The workshop will be available to any interested students. We expect the work to go beyond what is typically taught in classrooms: supporting, challenging and enriching students experiences with poetry, both in reading and writing.
My Project
In order to write well in any genre, students need to be immersed in it. A broad collection of free-verse poetry books will be needed on a wide range of topics. These will be available for use during the workshops and also for students to borrow to read at home. The workshop will run weekly for eight weeks. During the sessions, we will examine the craft, structure and themes of poems.
Students will have the opportunity to explore their physical and emotional worlds through the power of verse: reading and writing poems, experimenting with new techniques and ideas. Their poems will be featured in a literary magazine published at the end of the workshop. In addition, students will have the opportunity to perform their poems at an open-mic celebration. This will be offered to students in our community in third-sixth grades.
This workshop will bring together a community of writers across a range of grades who will be able to express themselves freely through poetry.
It will be a truly valuable way for young people to enrich their experience of language while building a meaningful sense of themselves as members of a community without the pressure of grades and the structure of the daily classroom. The workshop structure will enhance the experience as students will learn with and from each other.
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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. Attanasio and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.