One of the hallmarks of a Sacred Heart education has always been that our students transition into high school with strong writing skills. What is the magic behind that?
To begin with, the Academy has a whole-school emphasis on a development of the love of words, story and reading. This is a goal because we know that voracious readers become excellent writers!
Building on that, the Academy has a vertical curricular emphasis on sentence structure and rich vocabulary development. We still diagram sentences and we love to insert new “Wordly Wise” words into classroom conversations.
Finally, the Academy believes that good writers develop when children write! From our youngest learners who are encouraged to write using “creative spelling” (i.e., let nothing get in the way of the flow of ideas) to our older learners who write drafts and drafts of drafts to hone words into thoughts and thoughts into compositions, we ask student to write. The key here is that writers become writers by writing! Just as importantly, development and growth in writing occurs with ongoing feedback and revision as part-and-parcel of the writing process.
One reason writing is so critical to our curriculum is that through the development of good writing, we are engaging in helping our students to develop good thinking. The beauty of writing is that it not only provides an outlet for depth, clarity and creativity but writing is a TOOL for deepening, clarifying and creating. In other words, writing is not JUST a product, but it is a tool—a tool for growth in the skill of thinking! And, as you know, more than anything else, one of our aspirational goals is to develop THINKERS!
With this as a backdrop, our Seventh Class students have not only been reading, thinking about and analyzing great poems—including works by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edgar Alan Poe, William Earnest Henley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Blake and Alfred Lord Tennyson—but they have engaged in some amazing creative poetry writing of their own. In fact, under the tutelage of Seventh Class Language Arts teacher Mary Claire Russell, two students are receiving recognition for their work:
Michael Drabelle was entered into the 7th Grade Poetry Competition through the 7th Grade Poetry Foundation. He is the first seventh grader to have his poem chosen to be published within the 7th Grade Poetry Curriculum. Michael wrote an American Sonnet titled “Beauty of the Night” that will be read by administrators, educators, and students nationwide next year. The Sonnet section of the curriculum opens with Michael’s poem on the first page and with a Shakespearean sonnet on the second page.
Harry Coons was entered into the Grannie Annie Story competition. His story was one of 35 chosen to be published in a book of short stories from a large pool of global applicants. His story is called “Slavery Escape” and the action centers around the true story of his grandmother who was, at one point, a slave. Currently, he is making the final corrections and clarifications to his story prior to its publication.
Congratulations to Michael and Harry, who represent our school very well! CLICK HERE to read their poems as well as others by our Seventh Class students.
United in our mission, an aspect of which is to educate to a respect for intellectual values,
Sister Glavin
