SPRINGDALE — A writer’s visit to his high school inspired Clayton Scott to write poetry for the first time when he was 17.
Forty years later, Scott’s love of poetry and writing continues. The Fayetteville resident and winner of this year’s Governor’s Award for Arts in Education now travels to schools across Arkansas teaching children about creative writing.
At A Glance
Clayton Scott’s Resume
-Graduated magna cum laude from Southwestern Oklahoma University with a bachelor’s degree in education and a language arts minor.
-Received master of fine arts in writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Ky.
-Former poet laureate of Fayetteville.
-Has spent 13 years doing workshops on writing in schools.
-Ranked in top 10 percent of slam poets in the world in 2001.
Source: Staff Report
This week he’s at Springdale’s Lee Elementary, where he’s spending a little time each day with students in grades three through five.
With Scott’s guidance, the students are learning and writing poetry as they prepare for a school poetry slam at the end of the week. He’s done the same thing at Sonora and Young elementary schools this fall.
About 20 fifth-graders will be selected to read the best poems they’ve written this week at the poetry slam. The top five poets will receive ribbons; the top three will advance to the citywide poetry slam in April, where nine other Springdale schools will be represented.
A panel of students will do the judging at Lee’s poetry slam, Scott said.
Scott gave students a pep talk on public speaking Tuesday afternoon in Cori Fryar’s fifth-grade class. He pulled out of his bag a small rubber chicken, called Pluck, which he said represents fear. The chicken lives in all of us, he said, and is continually telling the students not to raise their hands when the teacher calls on them to participate.
“Fear is that stupid,” he said, pointing to the chicken.
Scott told the students the only way to get good at something — like public speaking — is to practice. Making mistakes is part of the process, he said.
“If you can’t make mistakes, you can’t make anything,” Scott said.
He then called for volunteers to read the poems they were asked to write for that day’s class. Five students soon agreed.
One of them was Elizabeth Sanchez, 10, who wrote a poem about her recent trip to Pensacola Beach, Fla.
Elizabeth participated in last year’s poetry slam at Lee Elementary as a fourth-grader.
“I loved it,” she said. “I love having the opportunity to write poetry and express my feelings and creativity through writing.”
Scott’s Tuesday lesson also included an exercise in choosing big words to replace more common words in their poetry.
Lee Principal Justin Swope said students are expected to do “close readings” in which they analyze why an author chose certain words in a particular text. Being in the author’s role helps them better understand that process, Swope said.
Most of Scott’s work in the Springdale schools is funded through an arts in education grant from the Arkansas Arts Council. He said many teachers are intimidated by poetry, which is why they generally shy away from teaching it.
Seeing kids stand up and read their poetry in front of their peers and teachers is exciting, he said.
“I’ve seen students change their whole social status because they were recognized” for their poetry, Scott said.
Toward the end of Tuesday’s session in Fryar’s classroom, Scott gave students their assignment for the day: write at least four stanzas of a tercet, a group of three lines of verse. He suggested a theme of “If I were,” in which they should imagine what it would be like to be someone or something else.
Jamin McLaughlin, 10, already had that assignment done. He had written a poem called “Light” in which he described the stars.
Jamin was runner-up in Lee’s poetry slam last year. From that experience he learned he needs to put a lot of detail and description in his poems.
He clearly wasn’t worried about the public-speaking aspect of the competition, however.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said.