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Crook County High School Honors English students spent the morning working with their younger counterparts from Ochoco Elementary in writing poetry on Jan. 20. Back row: CCHS students, Forest Dearth and Jillian Dehart. Front Row, from left: Layton Marshall, Vanya Crumrine, and Cecily Cooper, students from Ms. Cooke’s first grade class.
There is a kind of magic that happens when high school students mentor their younger counterparts in creative works such as poetry and writing.
On a chilly Friday morning, more than 80 eager Ochoco Elementary students took a field trip to Crook County High School to share an adventure of words with their mentors. The younger students shared their poetry, and were given advice and help in composing and writing their poems.
Freshman Honors English instructor Rich Daniels said that between his class and Sophomore Honors English instructor Jim Churchill-Dicks, they had more than 60 participants from the high school.
“My students were really excited when we were done,” said Daniels. “When I told them at first that we would be working with elementary kids, they got really excited.”
When the project was complete, he had the students do a reflection and a verbal debriefing.
“They felt like they did something good that day, and they had done something constructive. They had a real good time.”
In all, the freshman and sophomore honors classes mentored more than 80 elementary students. The first-graders brought their poems for the high school to critique for word choice and sentence structure. If they didn’t have a poem written, the older students assisted their younger understudies with the creation of an original piece of their own.
“It was incredible,” exclaimed Ochoco Elementary Principal Tim Gleeson of the field trip. “It was kind of like you planned this big event and then you just watched it happen. The interaction with the kids and the high school kids was wonderful.
“Our kids were so validated by those high school kids. Having our kids getting the compliments and support from high school was a real ego boost to their writing.”
The entire project began with a group of students at Ochoco Elementary called Kid Power. The group is similar to a student council, and Gleeson is responsible for assembling the new leadership.
“Our philosophy is we need to put students in positions where they actually have some kind of authority, said Gleeson. “If you do that, I think you develop leadership skills.”
He said that he turns over a portion of the building’s functions to the Kid Power team, and their charge is to make “Ochoco School cool.”
The students meet for approximately one-half hour per week and brainstorm what projects would make the school a better place.
“It gives kids a chance to help the school and make the school a better place,” said fifth-grader Alexia Atkins.
“That entails them coming up with project lists, and with that, we have kids vote and prioritize lists and go after the top projects,” commented Gleeson.
Among the projects, the Kid Power team has created several contests, with the poetry contest being one of them.
“We have so many contests,” said third-grader and Kids Power member Jerrica Cooley. “We get to decide what the contest and rules are.”
Fourth-grader Cobe Young said that he likes Kid Power because the kids get to make the rules in deciding what projects they will take on.
Gleeson said that by activating what they want to have happen, the kids believe that they have an influence on the culture of the school. He has seen them take ownership and become proactive in enforcing positive behavior among their peers.
“If you put them in charge, they will take charge.”
Gleeson said that they had received a brochure about poetry from the Oregon Poetry Association (OPA). He said the contest was open to grades kindergarten through grade 12. The top 10 poems in divisions three and four will win cash prizes and will be entered into the 2012 Manningham Trust Student Contest by the OPA Student Contest Chair. This nationwide contest, which is sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, also awards cash prizes and publication.
The Kids Power group decided to move forward with the project, and they wanted to offer a school-wide contest at the same time. All Ochoco Elementary students who wanted could enter their local contest.
It was in the light of this project that the CCHS English honor students became involved in the entire process. Daniels and Churchill-Dicks, along with their students, invited the first grade classes from Ochoco Elementary to come and work with the students in a poetry-writing workshop for one morning.
“We’re in the process of having the teams judge them now,” said Gleeson. He said that they have to postmark the entries for the Oregon Poetry Association by tomorrow, Feb. 1. According to Gleeson, he has five teachers at Ochoco Elementary on their writing team who are judging the entries. They have two categories; kindergarten through second grade, and third through fifth grade. Ochoco has a contest that all students can enter, and after the writing team makes their assessments, they will make recommendations to the Kid Power team.
“We have assembly prizes for the finalists, but there will be one overall winner. The overall winner will get one of the laptop computers.”
The PTO is also helping in the process of getting the poems ready for the contest, and the high school will be putting the finalists on their bulletin board.
Daniels said that they are hoping to make this an annual event.
“The little guys see what high school is going to be like, and the older guys remember how important high school was in their life when they were an elementary school kid.”
