"The idea for SPEAK came to me after the first few months of teaching the creative writing class here at Kelly. Often during my class, I would give students time to come up in front of their peers and read something they had been working on for feedback. The idea was that the more people who heard the writing, the more voices there were to critique, praise, and give feedback, and then the writer could use that information to go back and continue to revise.
With only a class of 25 students, however, we were soon bored with only hearing each others’ writing. The students became so familiar with each other’s styles, personalities, and techniques that they weren’t really learning from each other any more. And so, the idea to create a school-wide poetry club was born. Students all agreed that they enjoyed reading their poetry the most, and they enjoyed hearing each other’s new poetry as well. And we also realized that there are many talented students at Kelly who might want to be a part of this group. So I contacted Marlene Cervantes of the Brighton Park Community Council and asked if we could create something called a community-school in tandem with the council. After a bit of paperwork and waiting, the club was created.
I asked students in my class to be the first members to help get the club off the ground. We had our first meeting in October and had two important items on our agenda: we needed a name, and we needed to start advertising for new members. After much deliberation, the students came up with the idea of SPEAK, and they quickly decided what it should stand for: Students’ Poetic Expression at Kelly. We gathered a bunch of materials and after some deliberation about meeting dates, decided on Mondays and Tuesdays after school to give as many students as possible a chance to join. We decided our aim was to give students from the creative writing class, as well as any other Kelly students who are interested in improving their writing skills, a place to write, discuss, read, and perform their original pieces of writing. We hoped to publish students’ writing in several different formats, including newsletters and a final, formal compilation of revised work. In addition, we wanted to create safe, creative spaces for students to perform their work in front of an audience of their peers. The group wanted to offer writing workshops, guest speakers, peer auditions and performances, and time to work on their personal, original writing outside of class.
Throughout the year, met on a bi-weekly basis and continued to encourage new members to join. We sponsored several poetry slams, which were performances by student poets in front of an audience of their peers. We had poetry slams in November, December, and March of this year, and hope to have many more next year. Our audiences ranged from 35-55 students at each, with each audience growing larger as word spread of the popularity of the events.
Next year, the creative writing class will meet 0 period, and I hope to start off the SPEAK club right away, now that I know what we are about and what we need to do. I hope for even more involvement for students outside of the class as well."
-From Ms. Wellner