School Poetry Reading Revisited

Advertising does work!

Evidence of my negligence as a blogger is mounting up... it's been over two months since my last post on this blog, during which time I shared an activity my Advanced Placement class and I had been working on as part of our National Poetry Month (NPM) celebration. In the interim, while NPM has come and gone with varying degrees of success, its impact on my thinking regarding the success this year has not faded.

By far, in my mind, the most successful activity in the month long series was a poetry reading organized by the our school's library/media special, in collaboration with select Special Education staff. A more complete review (with pictures) can be read on the library/media speclialist's blog The Book Stops Here.

While I regret that more of my own English students did not attend and share their writing, I was extremely pleased to be part of the activity which highlighted the efforts of a wide variety of students in our learning community. Those of mine who did attend walked away with a new found appreciation and respect for those students, who while differently abled, have much to contribute to our culture of poetry appreciation.

Thanks in large parts to the efforts of our librarian, we have made some nice gains in the arena of poetry appreciation in the past few years... and there's always room for more next year!