School news
Woodstock Union HS Poetry Out Loud Contest 2025
Woodstock tucked in its 2025 Poetry Out Loud Competition on February 12th, ahead of winter vacation, and just ahead of the second of three big snow storms. Twenty two students participated in the recitation competition, held in The Rhoda Teagle Library, and attended by peers in 9th through 12th grades.
Pictured above: Owen Courcey as Accuracy Judge
Poetry Out Loud is a national competition that has its inception in high school classrooms across the country, and grows from there to schoolwide- competitions, state regional competitions, a state final competition and ultimately to a national competition in Washington, D.C.
Pictured above: Josh Byrne recites "The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allen Poe
Recitation is a particular art. Poetry Out Loud has rigorous judging guidelines, encompassing a student’s physical presence, voice and articulation, interpretation, evidence of understanding, and overall performance. Far more than memorization, in so many words recitation requires the competitor to be the “vessel” for the poem’s performance.
Pictured above: Liam Wheeler recites "The Kiss" by Robert Graves
Recitation asks the student to deliver the poem in a way that clarifies the poem’s meaning, makes its words, imagery, figurative language, rhythm and meter, even punctuation, the star, over the person delivering the art. It’s a nuanced experience, demanding exactitude as well as effective interpretation.
Pictured above: Tula Klock recites "What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends" by Julian Brolaski
The range of ideas and wisdoms across the twenty two poems students selected from The Poetry Out Loud Anthology was remarkable, cautionary, and encouraging, depending. And yet, “at bottom,” all boils down to “Words” (Haaken Oates’ choice by Pauli Murray) -- words’ selection, combination and arrangement. To offer a small sample: there were pleas for unity and community in poems like Santino Bohren’s recitation of “About Standing (in Kinship),” and Vasco Malik’s delivery of “We all receive the invitation”; Sam Hauze’s prose poem selection, “Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit” and Agnes Kardashian’s interpretation of “Walking with My Delaware Grandfather,” along with Jake Blackborn’s rendition of “Wind, Water, Stone,” offered nostalgic respect for ancestral and/or earthly wisdom, revealing the power of reflection to offer a kind of present eternity.
Pictured above: Tegan Miller recites "Summer" by Chen Chen
A number of student selections grappled with war and heroism/anti-heroism, from long ago, as was the case with Luke Pomeroy’s interpretation of Rupert Brook’s “The Soldier,” and Ayron Romanczak’s rendition of Henley’s famous “Invictus,” to the present, as reflected by poems such as Zara Khan’s selection “From the Sky,” or Mimi Kanda-Olmstead’s recitation of “To the Oppressors”. As Kirkegard once said, “Where tragedy occurs, the comic is present.” Such was the case with Josh Byrne’s rendition of “The Conqueror Worm”. In the end, poems having to do with some kind of love and humanity seemed to take the top slots: Quinn Eckler’s recitation of “The Universe as Primal Scream” (Tracy K. Smith) and Liam Wheeler’s rendition of “The Kiss” (Robert Graves) tied for third place (157 points each), Lylah Zeitlin captured second place (170 points), reciting “Siren Song” (Margaret Atwood) and Tegan Miller emerged as Woodstock’s 2025 POL School Champion with 178 points and her recitation of “Summer” by Chen Chen.
Pictured above: Judges and Scoring Team prepare for the next recitation
Tegan Miller, ‘27, will represent Woodstock at the southern Vermont Regional Poetry Out Loud Contest to be held at The Barre Opera House on Thursday, March 6th. Tegan will recite “Summer” at that competition, along with a second poem, “Friendship After Love” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Pictured above: Poetry Out Loud work in the classroom: Guest Teaching Artist Geof Hewitt works with Liam Wheeler on "The Kiss" by Robert Graves
The state final competition will consist of the top 5 recitations from the southern and northern regional competitions, respectively, and will take place at The Flynn in Burlington on Friday, March 14th, where finalists will recite three poems each to vie for the state champion and the opportunity to represent Vermont at the national competition in Washington, D.C. (April, 2025).
Pictured above: Mr. Clifford addresses the competitors and audience
Congratulations to all the students who participated with verve and rigor in Woodstock’s 2025 Poetry Out Loud Contest! Many Thanks to our 2025 judges: Mike Loots, Nathalie Kramer, Janet North, Detlef Hagge, Jessica Oakman, and accuracy judge: Owen Courcey. Ms. SJ as prompter and the dynamic scoring team, Heather Vonada & Andy Smith, along with scoring sheet “runner,” Jack Quicker, were invaluable to delivering a smooth contest, as were Mrs. Murphy and Ms Piccoli in “styling” the library space to accommodate the contest.
Pictured above: A poem is a sweet treat, but so are Ms. Hayslett's homemade heart cookies, Abbie's homemade pumpkin bread and Perk's oatmeal chocolate chip fruit bars
The Hive is Live!
The Hive is Live! Middle school journalists have been hard at work putting together the first issue of our student newspaper. Check out all their stories at The Hive, or read the sample headline below.
"Two Words" from Seniors
Seniors in AP Lit: Narrative Reality recently read Isabel Allende's short story, "Two Words," as an early exploration of the way(s) narrative shapes reality.
In response, these seniors shared their own "two words" that "ward off melancholy" or otherwise build their resilience and ability to recognize the good in a day or in a situation. Check out their poster of power positives that keep them each ticking.
Seniors Collaborate on Gatsby and a Lit-to-Life Mural Project
Seniors in English IV and AP Lit Collaborate on Gatsby and a Lit-to-Life Mural Project
In the last weeks of the semester, members of the Class of 2024 read a high school classic,
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and engaged in a series of sixteen journal prompts inspired by key lines from the novel, occasioning their own related experiences and recollections. Check out the murals in the main high school hallway to catch excerpts from those journal entries and a “look-see” into the dreams, the once-special objects, recollected names, experiences of the “ultimate degree,” self-reinventions, their own visions for “one fine morning --” and what they view as their supports to “beat on, boats against the current,” in pursuit of their future aspirations, among many other Gatsby-inspired anecdotes from their own real, true lives. Congratulations to the Class of 2024 - “-- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther --”
The Women of Lockerbie Vision Board Projects in English 4
Ms. Hagge’s English 4 students finished reading Deborah Brevoort’s The Women of Lockerbie just in time for Yoh’s upcoming performance of this play. Written in the form of a Greek tragedy, the play portrays how individuals and a community cope with the trauma inflicted by the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, a tragedy that occurred in 1988. For this summative project, students created vision boards with images and words representing the mood, characters, setting, and prominent themes in the play. After creating their vision boards, students wrote about their processes and presented their ideas in class. Here is a sampling of their vision boards and some excerpts of their presentations. We look forward to attending Yoh’s performances of The Women of Lockerbie on May 3rd and 4th!
“My process started by identifying my theme, which is that people need to grieve together and people need to support each other. I then found images that I thought related to my theme, like the image of the women grieving and holding hands. I then found images based on the mood and the setting, such as the hills, river, and sunrise. Then I added props, such as the candles, suitcase, and laundry. I chose the two words, hate and grief, because they were what I felt the play was really about; how to deal with hate and grief.” Grace Modarai
“I think that the two big themes of the play The Women Of Lockerbie are grief and unfairness. . . Madeline and Bill were still grieving from their son's death seven years later. Madeline thought she did everything right yet still this happened to her. My vision board captures this in the photos of the picture perfect house and the picture perfect family with a line crossing it out. . . The vision board being dark and gloomy shows that I understood the deep sadness caused by grief and conflicting feelings around fairness. The situation is so unfair. I also tried to show how important it was to the people left behind to have their loved one to be remembered as an individual and not just a nI also think that it is important to be able to tie all of the different objects together and be able to show a little bit of the story through the vision board. I think that one of the most important elements on my board were the many bags of people's belongings. I think that this one was really impactful because it showed us how many people lost their lives. Each set of their belongings showed us a little bit more about who the person was, making them real and not just random people or numbers. These were real people with real lives and had people that loved them. They mattered. “ Gracie Laperle
“For gathering my photos I looked up words relating to settings and the theme I chose which is to not let hatred win. I think my vision board communicates my theme through the photos I chose being directed towards more of a happy direction. . . I think the photo of the people hugging is the most important to my design because it represents my theme the most in the way that people can love and get through things with the help of loved ones and friends.” -Keller Pauly
“My design shows the two ways grief is shown in the story, one being grief that is shown through deep emotion and the other being grief that is hidden or pushed aside. This is shown by including pictures of emotion and images representing what Bill had to do after his son died, like talk to reporters and return his presents. . . My vision also shows Madeline’s sorrow, anger, and her search for her son.” -Lindsey Bacon
“I created this vision board by using keywords from my notes and the class notes on theme, mood, characters, and setting, and meshed each element together into one vision board. For example, I added a male character crying. However, in order to portray the grief that Bill is feeling in the book, I incorporated the ticket and the clouded thought bubble to portray his mixed feelings on his discovery of the ticket as well as the situation as a whole. This also doubles as a prop item. The image on the far left is added because I wanted to portray the grief of losing a child, as it is generally a very different type of loss than others. My props, in addition to the ticket, are the candles and the suitcase. The river and suitcase are placed where they are because of when they wash the clothes of their son in the story, but the word ‘healing’ is also incorporated into that section because I think that the river represented the family’s healing process and acted as an aid towards it. I think that the most important aspect of my vision board is the fire and clothing images because it represents the conflict of the story, and with no conflict there is no story. If I were to design the set based on a scene, the scene would be when Madeline is stepping over the river and expressing her grief. The set would have a hilly background and a river running through the center of it, so conversation can happen on either side of it, between Bill, the women and Olive, and Madeline can be in the center of it.” -Hannah Watson
“First, I thought about where it was taking place. We know that it takes place in Scotland, and in the story they talk about the rolling hills there. After that I thought about the theme, and I wanted to show how Madeline was mourning the loss of her son. Then I thought about important parts of the story like the memorial and how in the play there should be candles as props. Another prop that I thought could be used is a suitcase that would have been her son’s.” –Catie Austin
