Wooster Elementary students bring out the fun in writing

By the end of the 2008-09 school year, every student at Wooster Elementary School will be an officially published author.

Tracy McAllister, media specialist at Wooster Elementary, said poetry is something all teachers have to cover, but this year she wants her students to know writing is more than just an assignment.

"One thing we stress here is that writing is real, and it's not just something you do because a teacher asks you to," McAllister said Friday. "Writing is something that you will do until the end of your life, whether it's a thank you note, a poem or a doctoral thesis."

To further ingrain this train of thought, McAllister applied for and received a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to really bring writing to life.

The money Wooster Elementary received from this grant will not only pay for extra resources for teachers to learn more about poetry to better educate the kids, it will also cover the cost to publish their final pieces at the end of the year.

This grant also brought author Ken Nesbitt, known by kids everywhere for breathing a bit of humor into poetry, to the campus to share his work Friday.

"Having Kenn here is kind of a jumping off point for our poetry project," McAllister said. "With these new resources the teachers can better teach poetry and then each child will select a finished piece of poetry to be published in a book that parents will be able to purchase."

While Nesbitt spoke to a crowd of students in the new school's gym, the room filled with spurts of giggles and suggestions as he showed the kids how easy writing can be. He took the students through his thinking process when it comes to being inspired for a poem.

"Kenn showed that even existing poems can be used if you can't think of any new ideas," McAllister said. "He told the kids they can use current poems as a spring board and just change it up and still make a great poem."

Nesbitt's silly poems from books like "Revenge of the Lunch Ladies" and "The Aliens have Landed at Our School" had the students rolling with laughter and during his talk he challenged them to take a poem or a nursery rhyme they know and turn it into something new just by changing a few words.

He also told the kids a magic number they should know in case they are ever faced with a "poetry emergency." He said 811 is the number to look for in any library across the country, including the one located within their own school, to find books of poetry.

"I was really glad he told them about that number, and it's exciting to know that because of that grant we were able to buy lots of books of poetry that the kids can check out and discover even after Kenn Nesbitt is gone," McAllister said.

Before Nesbitt began his four presentations Friday morning, McAllister said the students were stirring in every classroom at the thought of meeting a celebrity. However, she said the presence of an author at the school will mean more to the kids than just a signed copy of his book.

"We can talk about authors and great books and great writing all day long but when kids actually get to meet a real, live author and hear him talk about what he does, it's even better," McAllister said.

McAllister also said she hopes Nesbitt's appearance will set a precedence at Wooster Elementary to have an author speak at least once a year. She said that way students who begin their educations at the school will have met six published authors by the time they leave.

(Staff writer Jessica Bauer can be reached by e-mail at jessica.bauer@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)