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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mead Students Share Poetry Via The Internet

Kara Briggs Staff Writer

Students from Mead High School have discovered that the days of writing poetry with quill pens by candlelight are over.

Lori Ziegler’s students have uncovered a less romantic - but perhaps just as exotic - way of composing and sharing poetry.

Next month, students in Zieger’s humanities class will publish a chap book of poems gathered from an international Internet bank of poetry written by high school students.

The University of Michigan sponsored the Internet space. Four hundred schools from around the world participated. Writing students contributed poetry for everyone to read.

Each school developed a theme for its own book of poetry.

Graduate students from Michigan critiqued the work of teenage writers via Internet.

“The Internet is a safe place to start writing,” said Matthew Q. Thorburn, a 20-year-old student at the University of Michigan, who first shared his work via cyberspace.

At Mead, Ziegler’s students wrote poems every week.

Sophomores Jessica Sanborn, Riann Ziegler and Shannon Carlson selected the best work and read it to the class. Then the class voted on which poems should be place on the Internet.

Mead students were allowed to write on any topic they wanted. Poems that didn’t fit in Mead’s book could be picked up by any of the other schools to put in their books.

Kimberly Murphy’s poem “Fly Again” was chosen by a Korean school to be printed in its book.

Riann said the program gave students, like herself, a taste for poetry.

“I hated poetry,” Riann said. “It was over my head, like Shakespeare.

“But when this program started I liked being able to read the poetry written by other students and I could actually understand it.”

Students have magnetism

Eighth-graders from Garry Middle School plan to visit kindgarten students at Garfield Elementary on Friday to teach a lesson on magnetism.

The eighth-graders have collected a bag of magnets. They will work oneon-one with the Garfield kindergarteners.

Garry teachers Paul Ramsey and Kelly Baconhord will take 20 of their students to Deanie Pizillo’s kindergarten class at Garfield Elementary School.

The Garry teachers hope that their students will be invited to visit other elementary schools before the end of the year.

“We find that the best learning is when it’s hands-on,” Ramsey said. “We’ll take in a collection of magnetic and non-magnetic materials. We’ll make designs and we’ll have races with little cars propelled by magnets.”

“We’ll be in the exploratory mode.”

Quick draw artist

Riverside Elementary introduced students to the quickest artist in the West and hoped that they picked up some of his skills.

The school invited guitar player Lloyd Mabrey and “quick draw” artist Charlie Gorsuch, of Lake Oswego, Ore., to present a program at a school assembly.

Mabrey led songs, while Gorsuch passed out pencils and paper and had students draw.

Lunch with the principal

Arlington Elementary students have new incentive to work hard in school. It’s the Principal’s Table award.

“It’s really helped turn disipline around in our school,” specialist Susan Dellwo said.

Each teacher picks two students a month to receive the award. Then the students and their parents are invited to have lunch with Arlington principal John Luher.

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