New DOE Initiative Aims to Get Students Writing Poetry

The halls of New York City public schools have echoed with rhymes over the past few weeks, as many students greeted with enthusiasm the chance to compose their very own poetry. Thanks to the Department of Education’s latest literacy initiative—P.S. Poem—hundreds of students have now established themselves as published poets.

In honor of April’s National Poetry Month, Joel Klein, CC ’67 and chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, launched the P.S. Poem program as a way to challenge students to try their hand at poetry and to give them the opportunity to see their work published on the department’s Web site. Students were further encouraged to participate by their teachers, many of whom created poetry units in their curriculums to coincide with the program. Parents and teachers could also submit poems written by their students, which appear listed with the students’ name, grade, and school.

Athena Shapiro, whose third grade class at PS 163 has been “dabbling in the realm of poetry,” was delighted with the program. “Students work so hard to express their thoughts on paper,” she said. “And poetry is a unique way to open their minds.”

Students from kindergarten through 12th grade submitted poems, under titles ranging from “What Is a Mother,” “The Uneaten Cheesecake,” “I Like Flowers,” and “Pizza.” Many classes also submitted collections of group work under a common theme. A second-grade class’s joint effort culminated in “A Sunny Day”; a fifth grade class submitted a small anthology of their poems called “Water Conservation Poems.” Like their student authors, the titles, style, content, and themes of the poetry are incredibly diverse.

“We have written about rain, spring, and even money,” Shapiro said of her students.

The submitted poems published on the DOE Web site represent only a fraction of those written in the P.S. Poem program—the DOE published hundreds of the thousands of submissions it received. But even with its limited publication the program has introduced its thousands of participants to poetry.

Across the city, schools have embraced the initiative by creating new initiatives of their own. Virginia Pepe, principal of PS 163, has invited students to share their work over the school’s loudspeakers, for example.

“Hearing another student’s work fosters creativity,” Shapiro said. “The fact that the whole system is opening up their ‘ears’ to students’ work makes the students proud of their accomplishment, and makes me proud to be part of the system.”

alicia.outing@columbiaspectator.com