UAH: Department of English

A half-day workshop for high school teachers interested in Poetry Out Loud will be held at UAHuntsville on Thursday, July 30, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Morton Hall 127-129. Reservations are required, but there is no charge for the workshop, and no obligation to commit to the competition. To reserve a seat or for further information, call Dr. Rose Norman at 824-2363 or email rose.norman@uah.edu.

At our Region 5 competition in December 2008, first prize winners were Devan Ray, a junior at Randolph School in Huntsville, for the Poetry Out Loud anthology competition, and for the original poetry competition a tie between Emanuel Waddell, a sophomore at Bob Jones High School in Madison, and Jesse Lawrence Schaffer, a junior at St. Bernard Preparatory School in Cullman. The Huntsville Literary Association awarded each first prize winner a check for $100, and UAHuntsville awarded them a $1000 scholarship.

The top four in each competition went to the state competition in Montgomery on Saturday, February 28, 2009, at Huntingdon College. Two region 5 students made the top 5 in the state Poetry Out Loud competition, Emanuel Waddell (1st honorable mention) and Devan Ray (second honorable mention). Two region 5 students won first and second place in the state Original Poetry Competition:

1st place, Elizabeth Brasseale, a senior at Catholic High School in Huntsville, for her poem "The GLorification of Larks"

2nd place, Jesse Lawrence Schaffer, a Junior at St. Bernard Preparatory School in Cullman, for his poem "The Breath of Grace."

Poetry Out Loud is a national poetry recitation contest for high school students, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Poetry Foundation. Dr. Rose Norman, chair of the UAHuntsville English Department, is coordinator for the ten counties in Alabama's region 5 (see county map). High school students compete in their classrooms and schools, and school winners go on to a free workshop at UAHuntsville in November and a regional competition at UAHuntsville in December. Regional winners compete for the state championship in Montgomery, and the state champion competes at the national competition in Washington, DC. There are prizes all along the way, and the national champion wins a $20,000 scholarship.

Teachers must register by September 15 for their classes to participate. These classes may be in any field of study, but most often are from English, Theatre, and Forensics. The NEA and the Poetry Foundation provide teachers with free, standards-based curriculum materials once their schools register to participate. Materials include one teacher's guide with sample lesson plans to help instructors teach recitation and performance, and two audio CDs featuring well-known actors and writers such as James Earl Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Alyssa Milano, and N. Scott Momaday. Teachers also get two Poetry Out Loud Anthologies and two Poetry Out Loud posters. Each participating school gets one instructional DVD for each school participating. The program requires less than two or three weeks of class time. There is no charge to participate.