FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
2014 L/A ARTS MAINE WRITES POETRY RESIDENCIES/SLAM
L/A District Wide, Global Writes Slam Competitions:
L/A Schools vs. New York City, San Francisco
Lewiston vs. Auburn Schools
Live Via Teleconferencing
Location: Geiger & Farwell Elementary School Libraries,
Lewiston Regional Technical Center (Judging Site)
Schedule: Attached and below in body of email.
L/A Arts is pleased to announce the second year of Maine Writes poetry residencies and slam tournament is taking place six Lewiston/Auburn schools. Eleven Arts in Education residencies are currently taking place at four Lewiston (Farwell, Geiger, and Montello Elementary, and Lewiston Middle School) and two Auburn schools (Sherwood Heights, Edward Little High School). These classroom workshops have taken place over the course of a ten week (20 class) program, and are team taught by an L/A Arts professional poetry teaching artist partnered with a Lewiston/Auburn public school classroom teacher. During the work, students are studying the poetic literary form, and applying their understanding by writing and performing their own original pieces. The students have written and will be presenting original poems based on themes inspired by the poetic artwork they have studied, and topics from their lives and community that have importance to them. All participating students will receive a special commendation for their work.
Students are preparing to compete in a district-wide and/or global writes slam competition live via videoconferencing. Edward Little High School will compete against high school teams from Yonkers, San Francisco and the Bronx, NYC to jumpstart the competition in early February. The elementary and middle school classes will participate in a Lewiston/Auburn district wide competition, the winners of which will go on to the Global Writes invitational finals with schools from San Francisco and New York. In a spirit of celebratory competitiveness, 5 students from each competing class (chosen by their peers and teachers) will perform their poems, which will be adjudicated by a panel of adults and students for the merit of its poetic and performance quality.
In November of 2013, administrators and teaching teams from the Lewiston/Auburn Public Schools and L/A Arts met and planned an integrative poetry and English Language Arts curriculum that is aligned with Maine State Learning Results and Common Core Standards. At this introductory professional development workshop, planning with NYC partners took place around the overall scope and expectations of Maine Writes, and arts in education practices in the classroom. When residencies began, the teaching team took these plans into their instruction in the classroom. In addition, they continue to meet once a week (45 minutes) over the course of the program to reflect on the effectiveness of lessons, codify practices, and measure classroom learning goals.
Maine Writes will take place with support from two New York City based arts in education organizations, Global Writes (http://globalwrites.org) and Dreamyard Project (www.dreamyard.com). During the 2012-13 school year, these two organizations invited the Lewiston Public Schools and L/A Arts to establish Maine Writes, joining their community of schools from across the country (Chicago, San Francisco, Yonkers, etc…) in arts in education sharing opportunities through innovative technologies.
For more information contact: Joshua Vink, Interim Executive Director, LAArts: josh.vink@laarts.org
L/A Arts 221 Lisbon Street, Lewiston Maine 04240
ph. (207) 782-7228 fax (207)782-8192 www.laarts.org
2014 Maine Writes Poetry Slam Schedule:
I
nvitational Global Writes Competition:
Thursday, February 6th 1:30 pm – Edward Little HS participating – @Lewiston Regional Technical Center – Room v217
Maine – L/A District Wide Competition:
Monday, February 10th: First Round Elementary School Competition – @LRTC, Geiger, Farwell
Tuesday, February 11th: First & Semifinal Rounds Elementary School Competition – @LRTC, Geiger, Farwell
Wednesday, February 12th: Elementary School Finals – @LRTC, Geiger, Farwell
Middle School Competition – @Lewiston Middle School Auditorium
Global Writes Invitational Competition: Finals
Week of February 24th: Global Writes Finals TBD – Winning Maine elementary and middle schools competing – @LRTC
This program is provided to the Lewiston Auburn schools from the following foundational/public/private funders:
The Lewiston Public Schools, Mechanic Savings Bank, George and Helen Ladd Foundation, the Betterment Fund, the Lewiston Public Schools, Dreamyard Project, Global Writes, and The Davis Family Foundation.
Artist Bios:
John Holdridge (Geiger Elementary School) is an educator and teaching artists working in the field of creative literacy and language development. He divides his work time between leading creative writing and reading workshops for Pre K-12 students and professional development sessions for their teachers. He is the owner and lead consultant of John Holdridge Consulting as well as a senior associate with the ArtsLiteracy Project at Brown University.
Martin Steingesser is author of two books of poems, Brothers of Morning and The Thinking Heart: the Life and Loves of Etty Hillesum, both published by Deerbrook Editions (North Yarmouth, ME, 2002 and 2012). The poems have also been published in a broad spectrum, including national magazines, such as The Sun, the Humanist, The Progressive and Country Journal, the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times. As a performer, Martin has participated in the Touring Artist program of the Maine Arts Commission for the past 30 years, performing poems and stories for diverse audiences at venues around the state. Since 1981, Martin has been teaching some 50-100 workshop days a year in the Maine Arts Commission’s Artist in Residence programs and with L/A Arts, in public schools, colleges and at state arts conferences, such as the Maine Council for English Language Arts and the Maine Alliance for Arts Education. His awards include the Maine Alliance for Arts Education’s 2006 Bill Bonyun Award “for exemplified talent and professionalism as an Artist and contributions to arts education. He is Portland, Maine’s first Poet Laureate (2009-11).
Maria Fico and John Ellrodt, Co-Presidents of Global Writes, have spent over forty years working in the schools and classrooms of New York and other cities. As teachers, as district staff and as technology specialists, they have designed and implemented countless projects and programs to explore the ways that new and emerging technologies enhance and extend education. In 1998 they created Bronx Writes, a performance poetry program, centering on writing workshops with resident teaching artists, and the use of videoconferencing to share student work. Through close partnership with DreamYard, a Bronx-based arts organization, the program grew from four schools to nearly thirty, and from six classrooms to over fifty. Global Writes was formed in 2005 expressly to bring the Bronx Writes concept to other cities, to further develop the model, and to begin to build a global community of student poets. Over the last few years, John, Maria and Global Writes have been recipients of three separate grants from the US Department of Education. The Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination program has funded startup of new Global Writes partnerships in Chicago, with Young Chicago Authors and Chicago Public Schools, and, most recently, in San Francisco, with Performing Arts Workshop and San Francisco Unified School District. Data gathered from these and earlier studies have underscored the positive academic, social and emotional impact of the Global Writes model, and just how valuable it is to bring young people together to learn the power and beauty of the written and spoken word.