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Students Bring Poetry to Life Through Art and Creativity
Bronxville School’s library transformed into a vibrant hub of creativity throughout April as Librarian Eileen Mann partnered with middle and high school English classes to celebrate National Library Month and National Poetry Month. The initiative blended literature, music, and art to deepen student engagement with the curriculum.
The celebration began with students from Alyssa Dioguardi’s high school English literature classes, who explored selected poems they had studied in preparation for their Advanced Placement exams in May. The students discussed the themes and symbolism of their chosen works while listening to music and painting the imagery from their selected poems.
Ninth grade students from Lara Dearman’s classes examined the themes and depth of emotion in “The Kite Runner.” They reimagined lines from the novel as poetry before displaying their original poems on kites, adorned with watercolor and symbolic designs.
In preparation for their upcoming unit on “Romeo and Juliet,” eighth graders from Zandra Llanos’ and Nicholas Iorio’s classes explored Shakespeare’s language with prose and sonnets. They discussed selected lines from the plays and interpreted them through watercolor illustrations. Many of the artworks were added to the growing “Poetree,” a collaborative display in the library.
Seventh grade students in Meg Weiss' and Kathryn Marron’s classes shared favorite poems and songs from their parents. They also engaged in Blackout Poetry or redacted poetry to create new poems from the original texts and curated personalized playlists to accompany their watercolor sessions. Their final artworks were showcased in the library’s “Poetree.”
Sixth graders participated in a celebratory Poetry Party in the library, which began with a friendly competition of rhyming games between Chris Lockwood's and Kathryn Marron’s classes. It was followed up by limerick writing, watercolor painting, and decorating poetry-themed leaves for the “Poetree.”
The celebration offered students across grade levels an opportunity to engage with literature in meaningful ways that extended beyond the traditional classroom experience.
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