Young Poets
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A Finale and a Beginning! Our Young Poet’s program drew to a close last Friday at the Five Star Café, but student interest in poetry is just beginning. Students shared some truly wonderful and original work with their classmates and parents during the week long “poetry jam”. It was a learning experience on many different levels for our students. So many people were involved in making this year-long Young Poets program successful. With the $2000 grant from the Bellevue Schools Foundation, along with PTSA funding, we were able to have Lorraine Ferra work with our students for three weeks. Her expertise and what she shared with our students was evident in so many of the student’s works. You, as supporters of our PTSA, helped fund the remainder of the financial needs for this program, along with generous donations made to our school from Starbucks, QFC, Safeway, Old Country Buffet, Great Harvest, Bellevue Art and Frame, Back Street Frame and Art and U-Frame-It. Our staff at Somerset was integral to the success of this program and what we were able to deliver to our students. Kathy Franzel has wanted to focus on poetry for a number of years and was the inspiration behind this program at Somerset. She was the source for finding Lorraine Ferra, and generously housed Lorraine, our poet in residence, for her three-week stay. She has spent a tremendous amount of time this year working with students on poetry in the library. Kathy hosted the Five Star Cafe in her library and spent the majority of the Sunday before, setting up the library for this week-long event. She tirelessly hosted the finale event all week. Thank you Kathy, for your spirit of giving to our children. And, thank you to Joan Butler as well, who willingly jumped in and participated in the poetry café experience with the classes she sees in library on Thursdays. Pam Faletto orchestrated and created the entire kick-off to the finale week, weaving student poetry into a show and putting it to music and movement. Her willingness to take on this project was a gift to the Somerset community. It took creativity, organization and lots of work to make this show happen. Pam did it in her usual style, with top-notch organization, creativity, follow-through on every detail, and professionalism. We are fortunate to have her at our school. Judy Brison participated in this production by having her jump rope club perform a number of poems, rehearsing these students and coordinating with Pam. Linda Matsudaira supported this effort by having her classes work on writing poetry that could be jump-roped. There were many fabulous works produced. Martha Gray has provided invaluable technical support the entire year for Young Poets. She ran the Power Point presentation during the finale, has taped classrooms performing poems so that poetry could be aired for morning announcements, and has provided technical support all along the way. Leanne Berkenwald and Linda Carlson-Brazil were instrumental in having each student make, illustrate and embellish their own poetry book to house all of their poetry. Most of the grades’ front cover artwork was also made during art classes in the fall and winter. And, of course, thank you to all of the teachers who embraced the program and integrated it into their respective curriculums in such a “seamless” way, and made it that much more enriching for all of our students. Your enthusiasm and unique ideas were contagious, and fueled the excitement surrounding the program at the classroom level. As you can imagine, in addition to the support from all of the above, this program could not have happened without parent volunteers and involvement. A very special thank you to Susan McAllister for taking ownership, for the majority of the year, of the Young Poet’s Corner in the front lobby of our school. Susan has brought her artistic talents, creativity and time to the table to make this an exciting, meaningful and special venue for our student’s poetry. When she volunteered for this job, she didn’t just do the job, but improved the idea, shaped it into something far better and spent the mental and physical energy to make it great. A huge thank you, as well, to Grace Lim, Kathy Peter-Contesse and Diane Reed, who have also done several weeks of the Poetry Corner. As always, Oh Ruder has been on hand weekly to photograph the authors of the featured poem. Our special thanks to Darby Stevenson, who spent many, many hours typing poetry for the acrylic stands in the library so that students could be exposed to new poems of all kinds on a weekly basis. Darby also kept the “Pick a Poem” basket in the back of the library stocked for our children all year long. In the bookmaking process, a team of volunteers helped fold paper for the inside of the book, cut matboard and glue the books together. This took many hours of work. Thank you Lisa Benoit, Chris Bradley, Charlotte Gore, Marisol Graue, Junko Iishi, Jill Klinge, Kathy Lane, Cindy Lew, Grace Lim, Patricia Magnani, Susan McAllister, Libby Miller, Claudia Niessing, Kathy Peter-Contesse, Audrey Scallon, Linda Shigeta, Kim Smerekanych, and Jean VanCourt. Once the books were made, another team of volunteers helped out in art class and during in-classroom Art Imagination sessions to work with the students to creatively express their written poetry with illustrations, paper cut-outs and more. Two of our fabulous Art Imagination volunteers, Cindy Lew and Kathy Jones, worked with the individual 4th and 5th grade classes on their front cover artwork. Thank you to them and Tammy Alford, Jacqui Becker, Lea Birmiwal, Chris Bradley, Nancy Brunsvold, Yunbo Cassidy, Christine Chang, Rina Chowdhury, Margaret Connelly, Natalie Delbruek, Kristine Dorsett, Sally Durben, Susan Edison-Collins, Karen Eng, Jill Follett, Susan Freeberg, Kim Gray, Lynn Hall, Ruthee Harlow, Chong Hwang-Aisaka, Arden Hyatt, Diana Ivarson, Momena Khan, Suzanne Kogishi, Debra Kumar, Barb Lall, Veronique Hoi-Sime Lam, Kawai Li, Patricia Magnani, Ruth Marsh, Susan McAllister, Libby Miller, Yuri Nakai, Akemi Nakajima, Claudia Niessing, Natasha Nimmo, Kathy Peter-Contesse, Sarah Powers, Sharanya Rajan, Lisa Ramos, Oh Ruder, Lisa Schilling, Michele Schmidt, Ellen Schoonover, Linda Shigeta, Kelly Skaran, Kim Smerekanych, Susan Smith-Burgess, Darby Stevenson, Sonia Taniellen, Archana Verma, Yvonne Western, and Allie Wu. While Lorraine Ferra stayed at Kathy Franzel’s home, a number of generous Somerset parents made dinner and delivered it to school for them so that Kathy wouldn’t have to cook. We can all thank Charlotte Gore, Archana Verma, Grace Lim, Kim Smerekanych, Lalita Uppala, Kathy Peter-Contesse, Chris Bradley and Karen Eng for taking their valuable time to provide these meals. In addition, we thank Karen Eng and Patricia Magnani who got 600 cookies donated to Somerset from Sally Foster, and (with the help of Kristine Dorsett) baked and delivered them to the library for the Five Star Cafe. During the inaugural week of the Five Star Cafe, we’d like to thank all of the parents who helped with its “Grand Opening” – from providing decorations, helping set up, delivering coffee and hot water from Starbucks, and “staffing” the café. Most of them are some of the library’s regular volunteers who were scheduled for the week, but were willing to do café-related tasks, not the normal library tasks: Jacqui Becker, Arden Hyatt, Sylvia Juel, Mai Kent, Barb Lall, Susan McAllister, Libby Miller, Claudia Niessing, Oh Ruder, Diane Schwarz, Linda Shigeta and Darby Stevenson. And, of course, thank you to all of the parents who were able to visit the Five Star Café while your child was reading. Your participation meant so much to the children, and it gave them the opportunity to speak before an audience – not an easy accomplishment! Thank you for providing that opportunity, and to those of you who purchased books at the “mini book fair” sponsored by University Book Store, thank you for helping raise money (and books) for the library. Lastly and certainly not least, thank you to all of your children. It has been a pleasure working with them, getting to know them, and hearing their poetry this year. Their creativity, humorous thoughts, serious ideas, original descriptions and general enthusiasm for poetry, learning, and expression have been a joy to be a part of. If you thought this program benefited your child, please volunteer to run a program next year. Somerset has always had a great reputation as a school because we have teachers and staff who “fund” our school with lots of extras, and parents who work to provide additional educational programs, as well as support for the teachers. We are a partnership of parents -- a community that comes together with our collective energy and time to continue to make this school great for our children. Again, thank you one and all.
Jodi Gable, 425.643.2079
jodidg@comcast.net Thank you to Bellevue Art and Frame (and other local frame shops) Bellevue Art and Frame donated all the mat board to our school so that each one of our 614 students could make a handmade poetry book in art class. These are the uniquely created and wonderfully illustrated books that house the students’ works of poetry they have written throughout the year. It was a very generous donation. Please remember them if you are framing something, buying any art or craft supplies, or gifts for adults and children. If you haven’t been in, it is a wonderful store. In addition, just as we were starting to run low on 1,228 pieces of 9” x 12” matboard, two other area businesses – U-Frame-It in Kirkland and Back Street Frame and Art in Bellevue – generously donated matboard as well. In fact, we have many leftover pieces that can be used in art class, for auction projects, Art Imagination classes, etc. What is Young Poets? If you’ve wondered what your student will be doing
this year in the Young Poet’s program at Somerset, please read on. PTSA is
sponsoring this program in their continued focus on funding academic
enhancements. We have applied for $4,400 in two grants with the Bellevue
Schools Foundation to help with a portion of the cost and will be
hearing back in mid-October. The goal for this year-long focus on poetry
is to improve each student's writing skills.
More in-depth information will be published preceding each piece of this program. Please feel free to call with any questions, suggestions, or to volunteer to help with this program.
Jodi Gable, 425.643.2079
jodidg@comccast.net
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