Waldorf students participate in high school poetry instruction

Professor Tim Bascom will lead a group of students in teaching poetry at local high school.

By Rachel Lynch
On January 30, 2015 Waldorf staff, students, and some community members will be visiting the Forest City High school to work with five different Junior English classes focusing on exphrastic poetry. This is a creative exercise where students look at various photos, paintings, and other types of art and create poetry based on the image.

Prof. Tim Bascom, Director of Creative Writing at Waldorf, has been one of the leads working with Scott Berelsen, English teacher at Forest City High School, coordinating this project for a second year.

“High Schools in this region don’t always offer creative writing and that’s unfortunate” Bascom said.  Bascom also explained this was a good way to have student’s experience creative writing as well as giving Waldorf students the chance to give back gaining experience in the field.

There are multiple faculty and students, as well as a local poet, that will be working with the junior English classes in this year’s poetry workshop. Molly Maschka, a senior Communications and Creative writing double major at Waldorf, participated last year and plans to help out again this year. “Some of the kids had such creativity in their pieces and really brought the stories within the photos out,” Maschka said. Maschka said she is looking forward to seeing new faces and finding out what this year’s group can do. She also looks forward to promoting creative writing at Waldorf.

As well as participating in the creative writing exercises, students will also have the opportunity to gather information about the Waldorf creative writing contest. This contest encourages high school creative writers from northern Iowa. There are two levels for students to compete in, senior writers and younger writers. Cash prizes, a Waldorf scholarship, as well as possible publication in the Waldorf Literary Review are just some of the amazing benefits for high school writers who enter.

For more information on the Waldorf creative writing please contact Tim Bascom at tim.bascom@waldorf.edu.