Contest #11: Creative Communication

Contest:  Creative Communication Poetry Contest

Genre:  Poetry

Theme:  Anything you like!

Prize: Multiple Cash Prizes, teacher grants, free anthology

Publication:  Anthology containing winning essays and poetry

Odds of winning:  The website boast hundreds of winners

For more information:  www.poeticpower.com

 

Fourth period is getting a little sick of the "Writing for Fabulous Prizes" project.  They really balked at this one.  Only half the students brought back permission slips to enter.  We reviewed free verse and rhyming poetry and I asked the students to write one of each on any subject they chose.  They whined.  They cried.  They refused.

Then we saw a one-man play about Cesar Chavez.  The writer and performer of this play comes on stage as various characters and tells the story of Cesar Chavez.  In between acts, his wife plays the guitar and sings.  It was a beautiful performance and the students seemed to enjoy it.  We used the play as a spring board for our poems, revisiting the conversations we have had about social justice, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  This time the students really talking about the immigration issues that Utah is currently grappling with.  Every student wrote interesting and thought-provoking free verse poems.

The easiest way to submit these poems was through email.  I used my own email address and got confirmation letters addressed to each student.  This was a little exciting for the students to get a response that their poem had been received and when it would be judged.  It was a nice bonus for the students who went to the trouble to bring their permission slips in.