Poetry Out Loud

Our Upper School English department has just launched a school-wide competition for a spot in the national recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud. Every student will be learning a poem to recite to their English class and then the winners will compete for a single school champion. We the teachers modeled this by learning and reciting poems too. I have loved it so far. Here it is in a nutshell. We discussed in my classes today what the benefits are to memorizing a poem, contest or no contest. I asked them what they could possibly gain from it, and one of my students said simply, "A poem." Another followed with, "Yea, you always have a poem in the pocket of your heart." Yes indeed.