LENOIR, NC (January 23, 2019) — Carly Schwartz, a third-grade teacher at Davenport A+ School, and her third-grade team are working to inspire students’ imaginations to explore their community through poetry. Currently fundraising on Donors Choose their goal is to raise enough to provide a poetry workshop at the school as well as to purchase classroom copies of a local area poetry book so that each child can read and study the book eventually writing their own hometown poems.
Using the place poetry book “Poetry in LA (Lenoir Area)” by local author Laura Sedlacek (writing as LB Sedlacek), the poetry workshop will help students develop their written voice while developing deeper knowledge and building connections and appreciation for their community. The poetry book, “Poetry in LA” will be used for follow-up and cross-curricula activities.
To foster a sense of community and the arts, the third-grade team will hold a walking field trip to visit places Mrs. Sedlacek wrote poems about. During this trip, students will seek out things in their community they feel inspired to write about and illustrate. The students will also share their community poems and illustrations with young students attending school in Malawi, Africa. Arrangements are in place for students from the two countries to exchange information about their schools and communities.
Laura Sedlacek is a local novelist and poet. Her locally set mystery “The Glass River” was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award last year. In addition to her two “Poetry in LA (Lenoir Area)” poetry books, Finishing Line Press published another poetry book of hers, “Words and Bones.” Mrs. Sedlacek will read from her Lenoir area poems and discuss her writing style and inspirations with the students. These poems are about places students might normally take for granted from a local restaurant, to the downtown Lenoir sculptures to Hibriten mountain, etc.
This is a unique opportunity for these third-grade students to learn about and poetically express their feelings about the community in which they live.
If you would like to find out more about this community poetry project, please click here: https://www.donorschoose.org/project/exploring-community-through-poetry/3831473
To find out more about local author LB Sedlacek, please go to: http://www.lbsedlacek.com
~LB Sedlacek is a local area poet and author. Her books include the Happy Valley mystery “The Glass River,” the poetical romance set in Ocean Isle and Sunset Beaches “The Mailbox of the Kindred Spirit” and the poetry books “Words and Bones” and “Constellate.”