With walls decorated in colorful art, welcome signs and inspirational quotes, the SCC Speak Out Communications Club was ready to welcome their special guests: a group of students much smaller than the typical fair.
Constrained no longer, the doors of the Lair Conference Room swung open with wild enthusiasm as dozens of third graders from Stevens Elementary School poured in to join the SCC communications club for a day of rhythm & rhyme.
It was a big day for kids who haven’t been able to go on many field trips in the last few years. The Speak Out! Poetry Slam was the perfect occasion to get them out of the classroom and experience bustling community college life. Members of Speak Out joined the third graders at round tables overflowing with crayons and paper as they prepared for an imaginative day of poetry.
The activities centered around the theme of Perseverance. “Be Strong and Determined!” the motivational quotes around the room encouraged. Fittingly, songs and scenes from the hit Disney movie Encanto played throughout the day to warm reception. The students raised their hands in the air and sang along to their favorite songs before discussing the film’s themes of family and determination.
SCC communication club members patiently worked through a series of poem exercises with their assigned group – interspersed with snacks and fun activity breaks, of course. After singing along with “Surface Pressure” from Encanto, the students used the character of Luisa as inspiration while writing about what it means to persist under pressure. Creativity was the name of the game, and another exercise encouraged the students to create a poem by matching words to the letters of their first names.
The exercise went something like this -
Our school is:
Strong
Committed
Capable
The day wrapped up with students reading their original poems in front of the audience. This yearly event hosted by Speak Out is always a highlight for the Spokane community, and the energy of Stevens Elementary School’s third-grade class was a welcome addition.
"No matter if you don't have a talent, you're still special in your own way," read one student as they shared their original poem. "Don't let others bring you down, build yourself back up."