Spotlight on Student Writers

Picture a coffeehouse literary reading, sunlight streaming in through the windows as the confident writer shares his or her work with a captive audience. That was the scene Tuesday and Wednesday morning as the fourth graders celebrated some very important authors: themselves. 

After a year in which they wrote everything from personal stories to argumentative essays, students took this opportunity to share original poems, some funny, some touchingly sweet. Each author was given a formal introduction, complete with biographical background, favorite books and writers, and advice to younger writers, which included “Think outside the box,” “Find your passion and dominate it,” and “Always stay determined to make your mark.”

The Author Celebration follows last month’s Poetry Slam, now in its 14th year, which gave second, third, and fourth graders the opportunity to perform a poem—their own or another’s—onstage. Librarian Joan Good, who created the event, called the poetry slam “a forum for our students to experience poetry firsthand and share their creativity and expressiveness with each other.” As a librarian would know best, it’s up to us as readers to take literature out of the book and make it come alive.