Afterschool Program Pours Half-Pint Poets
The Half Pint Poet program is expanding to 11 elementary schools this year.
Monday afternoon at Garton Elementary School a dozen or so 9-11 year-old Wildcats filed from the gym into a classroom and grabbed a snack before shifting into the high gear of their 21st Century afterschool program.
At the front of the room their leader, Words Taylor, shouted “WHERE MY COOL CATS AT?”
“WE WILDIN’, WE, WE, WE WILDIN’…” the Cool (Wild)Cats chanted back in wholehearted unison through growling grins.
Everything about this half-pint poetry branch of the 21CCLC (community learning center) bonus curriculum is wholehearted. Garton’s Cool Cat chant is all its own but the 11 schools where the half pints will “spit” have another mantra in common:
“HALF-PINTS, WHOLE HEART!”
The half-pint poets were a pilot program last year at King Elementary, an offshoot of the ever-burgeoning Movement 515 that continues to flourish at the high school level here in DMPS. Teenage mentors, under the guidance of Taylor, tapped into a refreshing reservoir of creativity at the elementary level. The results were so encouraging that M515 founders Kristopher Rollins and Emily Lang got to brainstorming in collaboration with DMPS 21CCLC Director Heidi Brown about ways to pour more half-pints. Grant funding was obtained and Taylor, a veteran voice in the local spoken word poetry community and longtime friend of the M515/RunDSM programming, was hired this fall as a fulltime poetry consultant to 21CCLC. He is coordinating the scale-up at Brody, Capitol View, Hillis, McKinley, Monroe, Morris, River Woods, Samuelson, and Willard in addition to Garton and King. With the considerable help of a corps of 10 teen mentors.
Monday at Garton Linda Brown and Courtnei Caldwell from Hoover along with Jahleel Brazzle from East, all seniors, showed their protégés how it’s done. But first everybody warmed up with some review about the distinction between similes and metaphors, different types of rhyme, and an exercise aimed at noticing and remembering detail. Because that’s the fine print of life where lots of poetry hides.
The Garton kids are fully engaged. Even at the end of a gloomy Monday they couldn’t wait to “spit.” But first some time was devoted to writing. Their prompt was “Remember me…” When it came time to perform they jockeyed to go first. Several wanted to share multiple pieces, like their poetry was candy.
“When funds are low and debts are high…” was a line that one girl got off her chest in an ode to perseverance.
A boy who’d entered the room throwing a yo-yo at the floor and reeling it back into the palm of his hand painted himself as a role model for his little brother in a piece probably inspired by the one that Brown had shared from her perspective as a big sister.
By the time this group performs at an assembly on December 5th they ought to be on the loose, as in “getting free,” M515 code for escaping your demons before they imprison you. The kids exercise not only their literacy muscles but spiritual ones, too.
“Oh yes,” said Taylor on Monday, “the poetry is definitely therapeutic as well as academic.”
It’s yet another way that the 21CCLC option is extending the school day and broadening horizons. Aided by partner agencies that include ASAP (Afterschool Arts Program), Community Youth Concepts, Grubb YMCA, United Way of Central Iowa, IPTV, Iowa Student Loan, DMPS ELL Program, SUCCESS, 4-H and CultureAll, the program provides assistance to help students become independent learners. Students benefit from coordination between their daytime teachers and their after-school teachers. STEM activities are also offered to help students gain 21st century workforce skills. Other activities include cooking around the world, financial education, jewelry-making, filmmaking, gardening, physical fitness activities, and personal development with emphases like building healthy self-esteem and positive relationships.
So half-pint poetry is just the latest addition to an already impressive activity catalog. And it’s becoming a popular one.
“We’re in two schools at once (right now Morris in addition to Garton),” Taylor explained, “twice a week for four weeks. At some of the sites there are more kids wanting to sign up than we can handle so it’s really by application.”
There is a wholehearted deluge of poetry replenishing that district reservoir – half a pint and a couple of schools at a time.
