The
University of Delaware Department of English and the Delaware Department of
Education sponsors a Graduate Student Poets-in-the-Schools program. Each
semester, three talented graduate student poets are available to conduct poetry
workshops in secondary schools. The
graduate students have attended training sessions and prepared lesson plans.
They will meet with you in advance to coordinate their plans with your own ongoing
curriculum and to get a sense of the students they will be teaching. They will
then lead workshops in all of your classes for three days—either on consecutive
or alternating days.
The
goal is to teach a few formal issues involved in the study of poetry as well as
helping each secondary school student through the writing and revision of at
least one poem over the three days. A selection of the student poems is printed
in a small anthology—you will receive 30 copies of this booklet to give to
students whose work is included, or to make additional copies for everyone.
There
is no cost to the participating secondary schools. We do, however, have only
three student poets available each semester—each one is assigned to only one
teacher—so we can accommodate only three secondary teachers each semester. You
may have to wait a while for one of our poets to become available.
If you would like
to have a graduate student poet visit your classroom, contact me at fleda@udel.edu, or call 302-831-6749.