Collegiate Middle School English teacher Christine Waldron (center) with acclaimed author Kwame Alexander and his co-writer, Mary Rand Hess
Mrs. Waldron with a copy of Kwame Alexander's newest book
Students in the poetry workshop participate in various spoken word activities.

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Inspired By Award-winning Author and Poet, English Teacher Forms Poetry Workshop

12/19/2017

Two years ago, acclaimed author-poet Kwame Alexander visited Collegiate School to speak to 5th-8th Grade students about his award-winning book The Crossover. Middle School English teacher Christine Waldron left the assembly inspired.

“He was an amazing speaker,” she said of Alexander, who received the Newberry Medal — the highest honor in children’s literature — in 2015 for The Crossover. All Collegiate Middle Schoolers read the book to prepare for his visit. “I have never experienced a guest speaker that could keep a Middle School audience so entranced, especially since he was a poet.”

Last summer, Mrs. Waldron responded to a social media advertisement aimed at librarians and teachers to become part of a social media launch team for Mr. Alexander’s newest book, Solo, co-written by Mary Rand Hess. Mrs. Waldron signed up and was one of only 400 people selected across the U.S. She was sent an advanced copy of the book, read it and advertised it on her own social media platforms. Because of her posts, she was invited to New York to be part of the social media launch team and celebrate at the Harlem home of renowned poet Langston Hughes.

As a result of her experience, Mrs. Waldron decided to start a poetry workshop as an activity for Middle School students this year.

“Poetry is a very powerful type of writing to me, and it became my inspiration to create this as an activity in our Middle School,” she said. “I have always taught poetry in my 6th Grade classes, but I wanted more.”

This fall, three students signed up for the workshop, which meets once every two weeks. The students perform poetry and take part in activities such as using paint strips from the hardware store and writing poetry about the colors that inspired them and composing Halloween poems on bookmarks and hiding them in the library for students to find. Last week, the group worked on “redacted” poems. The exercise involves taking a page of a book and circling words that stand out to the reader and then blocking out the rest of the page, resulting in a poem.

Mrs. Waldron feels pleased at how well the new activity has gone this semester and is excited about future spoken word endeavors.

"I look forward to offering this workshop again to Middle School students who want to take a break in their week to enjoy poetry and art,” she said.

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