Poetry

Ben’s civic engagement project focused on helping middle-school students in a local school engage with poetry in a meaningful way. He got clearance from a nearby school to work with a class of 8th graders once a week for three weeks. During the first session, he brought in some poems for them to read and discuss. They talked about what they liked and didn’t like and why. The next time they did writing exercises and talked about incorporating the aspects they liked about the poems they read the previous week. Finally, they all brought in the poems they had
written over the course of the three weeks. Those who wanted to shared theirs with the group. Ben had a small book published through an e-publishing site, and gave everyone who participated a copy.
Overall, he was very pleased with both the results of my project and the excitement the kids had for poetry. Some of the kids who participated were clearly already writing on their own time, but others who were initially quite shy ended up with poems they were excited about and proud of. Ben writes, “The project gave me a chance to design a lesson plan and work with students. Furthermore, it gave me the opportunity to see how rewarding community involvement can be. The civic engagement project was one of the most meaningful experiences of my time as an
undergraduate, and I’m sure I would not have undertaken a project like this on my own.”