Poetry and cross curricular learning is alive, meaningful and robust at Kent School. Eighth Grade students study a blend of twentieth century literature, history, art and music throughout the academic year. The students read novels short stories, poems, plays and non-fiction articles to complete research papers. They read John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Richard Connell, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway and others.
A recent unit focused on the Harlem Renaissance and the poetry of Langston Hughes. Students explored the influence of art and music on poetry and vice versa.
Further into the unit, students crafted their own blues style poems. To demonstrate the influence music and poetry have on each other, their poems were set to blues rhythms by Kent School music teacher, Matthew Wirtz. This video shows Isabelle’s poem on the subject of her upcoming graduation set to a blues rhythm and performed by Mr. Wirtz.