43
Fourth-graders serve up coffee and poetry
Photo
Neighbors | Alexis Bartolomucci.Fourth grader, Emily Yurko, read three of her poems for the guests. She said she had a lot of fun presenting her poetry and was full of energy and excitement while reading them aloud.
Photo
Neighbors | Alexis Bartolomucci.The Daily Grind provided coffee and other small snacks for the families to enjoy while listening to the children's poetry. The Daily Grind was more than willing to contribute to this first time event.
Photo
Neighbors | Alexis Bartolomucci.Madonna Chism Pinkard, of WFMJ News, joined the children and read a poem of her own. She read the poem "Mr. Italiano," that she wrote about a previous teacher of hers.
Photo
Students and their families sat in a circle and listened as the Robinwood Lane Elementary School students read their poetry on Nov. 13.
By ALEXIS BARTOLOMUCCI
The fourth-graders at Robinwood Lane Elementary school hosted a Coffee Poetry reading on Nov. 13 for their parents and other guests.
This was the first time Robinwood Lane Elementary hosted an event like this after getting the suggestion from a new student. The fourth-graders spent 6-7 weeks working on their own poetry collection, which is a common core standard in the fourth grade.
“We try to make poetry fun for the students. We learned stanzas, haikus, illiterations, biopoems and so many more,” Jan Zorman, the teacher who put on this event, said.
The Daily Grind Cafe on Market Street was more than happy to supply coffee and snacks for the guests attending this event. When the guests arrived, they grabbed their coffee and snacks then sat in their seats which were placed in a circle around the children. The children sat on the floor in a circle and each took a turn sitting in the chair in the middle and rotating around so everyone could see them while they read two of the poems they wrote. Some students even had their poems published in The Vindicator.
At the completion of each poem, guests snapped their fingers, instead of clapping, to applaud the students. Most of the poems read were Halloween- and Thanksgiving-themed.
The students had the opportunity to read a third poem after all the students read their first two.
“I had a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time working on our poems. We learned a lot of stuff,” Emily Yurko, a student, said.
A guest poet, Madonna Chism Pinkard of WFMJ, made an appearance to the event and read a poem of her own titled “Mr. Italiano.”
The school hopes to repeat this a tradition for years to come.