Following a field trip to Walt Whitman’s birthplace in West Hills, the entire third grade of the Captree Elementary School in West Islip planned classroom poetry reading events and invited their parents. The project, entitled Create and Explore, used an interdisciplinary approach with a combination of social studies and language arts, which interpreted Long Island’s past while remaining in the present, explains teacher Linda Smith. The students explored the creative writing process by producing free verse poems in a writing workshop.

Pictured is third grader Sarah Novella as she receives a hug from her mom, Lorraine, prior to reciting her free verse poem in Smith’s class on Valentine’s Day.