Welcome Back! and Student Poetry Published!

 

Welcome back!  We've been back for a month and it went by so fast!  Before we dive in to sharing recommendations and programming news, here's a link to some student poetry that BAM published digitally in their Word. Sound. Power. 2025 anthology.  

Belmont's Blum students voices come in on page 48.  These poems were a product of a residency with poet and playwright Gideon Bautista hosted by English Teacher Mr. Villaronga and supported by a dynamic duo of collaborative colleagues: Reading Specialist Ms. Bernard and Speech Language Pathologist Ms. Ikawa.  We're so grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with BAM and so proud of our students.--Ms. Fenster-Sparber

Published: No Matter What I Should Be Myself Fully: An Anthology by Passages' Students at Belmont

Congratulations to our student authors just published by 826NYC in the anthology No Matter What I Should Be Myself Fully.  Out this week and available exclusively at Passages, this volume collects writing crafted with the gifted teaching artist Jaydra Johnson in February as part of our Frederick Douglass interdisciplinary project.  Participants read about Douglass' life in Bolden's biography, then read excerpts from Douglass' autobiography, and finally drafted their own pieces of memoir and poetry to share with the world. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Sky the Limit by Passages Academy Students

 

Another year, another National Poetry Month celebrated!  Students enjoyed playing with magnetic poetry tiles so much last year that we brought them out again, and thanks to LIT's generosity, we were able to gift a set to each NSP and NSD house.  

In class we shared Reynolds' Ain't Burned All the Bright and today we're publishing a second ebook anthology of students' creations.  Click here to access 20 new poems handcrafted in Brooklyn.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Shine by Passages Academy Students

We’ve been celebrating all month long, first with Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” and Zetta Elliot’s "We Can't Breathe" and "We Are Wise" from Say Her Name .  Then, thanks to generous funding from our partners at LIT, we gifted every student with a copy of Ink Knows No Borders.  Last week we invited students to play with language and composition with Magnetic Poetry kits, also provided by LIT, and today we’re publishing their collected compositions in Shine,  our first epub. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

New Release: Everything I Been Through

Out today:  Everything I Been Through.  An anthology published by 826NYC with crucial funding  provided by Literacy for Incarcerated Teens.  This publication of student writing marks the culmination of the Born A Crime interdisciplinary unit students engaged in this fall.  A publishing party organized by our incredible Social Studies teacher, Celestine Thomas, here at Belmont brought the authors and artists together to celebrate yesterday.  Belmont's amazing Art teacher, Ms. Bespalova, displayed students' African masks along the bookcase tops.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber