Geneva Middle School students celebrate the written word at English Festival

GENEVA – Geneva Middle School students celebrated the written word May 28 at the Geneva Public Library by creating “found” poetry, re-imagining book covers and much more.
The Geneva Middle School English Festival kept the students busy with five book-related activities throughout the building.
“This festival had students excited about books, and celebrating their achievements and encouraging the love of reading is what it’s all about, and why we hope to continue such a longstanding Geneva tradition,” Tammy Sabin, a gifted intervention specialist at Geneva Middle School, said.
The middle school partnered with the library for the event, which Sabin said was a quasi-version of the English Festival that had started as a county-wide program in 1985.
Sabin said the English Festival had been held at Kent State University at Ashtabula, but it went by the wayside with COVID. Then, it was brought back two years ago, but only Geneva and Jefferson students took part.
This year, the event was held only for Geneva Middle School students after Sabin reached out to the youth services manager at the Geneva Public Library, Sybil Cybulski, to help host the event.
Throughout the school year, about 85 Geneva Middle School students read six books, took quizzes, and did a variety of activities to go along with them.
The books were “Holes,” “Chasing Lincoln’s Killer,” “The Maze Runner,” “Out of the Dust,” “How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial” and “The Girl in the Blue Coat.”
“They take tests on them and as long as they earn an 80 percent or above, they are eligible to participate in the English Festival,” Sabin said.
At the festival, the students could take part in five sessions incorporating the books: a “found” poetry writing exercise, a session on media literacy, a script-writing activity for a podcast, a book cover re-imagining activity, and another focusing on the “Out of the Dust” book.
Sabin thought the students were enjoying the day.
“They’re loving it,” she said. “They’re real engaged and it’s been a really enjoyable event for them.”
She thought the festival was a nice culminating event after the students read all the books.
“They’re seeing fruits of their labor being rewarded,” she said. “They worked hard all school year.”
She said the students benefitted from the event socially and also on a creative-thinking level.
The “found” poetry session allowed the students to create poetry from the pages of the books that they read.
“We have each of the six books represented,” Sabin said. “They take a page, and they box in certain words that they want to create a poem out of. Then, they take a sharpie and they draw designs and they black out everything else, so it creates makes a really beautiful poem out of the books that we had read.”
She said creating the found poetry fosters the ability to access and write poetry for everyone.
“Besides giving a starting point for those who have a difficult time writing poetry, it is a highly analytical, creative activity,” she said. “Choosing the words to represent your message, while incorporating artistic qualities to represent that message is a higher-level approach.”
Emily Corlew, a sixth-grade English teacher at the middle school, thought the students did an exceptionally good job.
She said it’s easier for the students to create a poem this way because they’re given a list of words that they can pick from. At the same time, she added, it’s challenging because the students have to decide which words they’re going to choose. Then, they have to portray them on paper, she said.
Eighth-grader Serena Sanders created found poetry from a page of the book, “Out of the Dust.” She thought it was fun, having never written this type of poetry before.
The page she used concerned a public music performance at the Palace Theatre in Joyce City, describing how a character is backstage with other performers. They are feeling anxiety.
Her poem was about finding peace during anxiety.
“So, I wanted it to kind of show the relief, and that’s what I based on,” she said. “I tried my absolute best.”
Her poem read, “I suppose everyone felt the talent at the Palace Thursday night. Backstage amateur acts hearts pounding lips sticking our urge and a sorry sight in front of famous Players. They were kind, helped us, showed us how to bow and the audience hummed.”
The students also showed their creativity in the session in which they re-imagined book covers.
Eighth-grader Isabella Rosenberger redesigned the book cover of “Holes” by taking a character in the book, Kissin’ Kate Barlow, and putting her on the cover.
“I feel like she’s needed on the cover, because she’s like the back story,” she said. She also put an emphasis on holes on her cover design.
She enjoyed the activity.
“I liked it,” she said.