Poet Joins Our Expert in Residence

You'd think that as soon as finals are over that an educator would like to escape from the classroom...not Jane Wong.

As an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University, Wong's break lasted the short drive from Bellingham to Redmond. The next day, she was leading a class of Overlake sixth graders. While teaching college is her profession, her poetry is her passion. 

Wong is a published poet who spent three days at Overlake as part of our Expert in Residence program. It funds visits from inspiring experts for classroom instruction, group assemblies, and faculty discussions. "It's been a fantastic experience and the energy of these kids is so amazing," says Wong. "As a grad student, I actually taught middle school during the summer, and this is a great way for me to give back. But honestly, I also got so much out of this time."

Wong worked with Nicole Balin's sixth-grade students as they completed their own poetry portfolios. With exercises to generate ideas and creative writing, Wong actually shared a lesson in which students team up to create poems. "I actually do that exercise with my undergrads on the first day of class, and I encourage them to open their minds back to when they were kids. The goal is to tap into the child-like imagination. The sixth graders were so imaginative and silly to the point that it becomes natural when creating poems." 

Balin agrees and says that the proof is in the pudding with the improvement in the student portfolios. "She inspired my students to realize the power of their own words and the beauty and strangeness of specific, precise images in their writing," explains Balin. "My students were so excited about the poetry exercises that they did with Jane, they were jumping out of their seats!"

In addition to her classroom work, Wong read her work and shared her experiences as a professional writer to an assembly of Middle School students during club hour Friday. She was also a guest at a student affinity group.

Click here to learn more about Jane and her poetry.