A group of Southridge 4th graders can now call themselves “student authors”!
4th Grade Teacher, Lindsey Riehle, shared the news with the students on zoom a few weeks ago.
“We mailed the letters in November, so they have been very anxious and impatient. They would always ask me ‘have you heard?’ So as soon as I heard back, I decided to do a special meeting on zoom with the winners,” she says.
The teacher submitted 50 student works in total. 15 of these students were chosen to have their poems published in this year’s edition of the annual Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans.
Riehle first learned about the anthology publication from a professor while studying at the University of Evansville.
“The anthology looks for a variety of topics every single year. So we really don’t know what they are going to choose. They accept poems from Kindergarten all the way to seniors in High School,” she says.
This is the fourth year Riehle has submitted work to the publication and says the pandemic helped spark the student’s imagination.
“They did a reflection piece on what it was like to be at home in quarantine. And one student even incorporated her cat into her poem about quarantine, so that was cute. This also teaches them how to let their personalities shine throughout their writing,” she says.
Although not every poem Riehle submitted will be published, she says it teaches students a valuable lesson.
“If your work doesn’t get accepted, don’t get defeated and keep trying. If it’s something that you want but doesn’t come easy to you, try again in the following year,” she says.
The publication will be available for purchase in May.
The students selected for the publication include: Diego Ramos, Yohana Serrano, Elizabeth Kennedy Poehlein, Sarah Snider, Sophia Dekemper, Addy Gromer, Wyatt Menke, Shawn Humbert, Ellie Abarea, Bentley Merkel, Rodrigo Mares Sifontes, Audrey Whitehead, Audrey McAninch, Miguel Calderon, Kalvin Speed, and Brock Riehle.
