By D.L. FICALORA
Her plans lend credence to the reasons why she was invited to join the school’s talented writers program, a selective course for students deemed more deeply committed to the art of the written word.
The program is different than an English class in that it encourages discourse with the purpose of vetting students’ writing through peer review.
"It's a course geared for the highly motivated student who writes in their spare time, the serious writer, the writer with a portfolio already," said Rachell Koegel, who has headed the talented writers program the last five years.
The class is composed 25 top writers ranging from 9th to 12th graders, and structured for a high school level student, but it is taught with the intensity of a college course.
"For the freshmen, at first, it is pretty intimidating," Koegel said. "Sometimes they may become discouraged because the process is so difficult, but once they get rolling students are impressed with the progress they make."
Robertson said that talented writers is, by far, her favorite class. "We make creative suggestions,” Robertson continued. “The point of the program is to help each other grow as writers.”
Koegel arranges the classroom in a circle formation to facilitate easier conversation between students, which encourages them to offer constructive criticism and positive feedback. They are required to speak precisely and tactfully, and develop good interpersonal relationships and an identity as a class.
"They learn how they can get their point across and how they can say it in a way that is not negative, but constructive," Koegel said.
Koegel said that the ease of a conversational group, operating with respect and creativity, is an important part of the program, in which students develop a rapport with each other.
"You really get to see them evolve and blossom,” she said. "They're a special group of students."
Sarah Ben-Moussa, a sophomore in the program, said that the students in talented writers display the utmost maturity, and this helps her learn to accept criticism better and develop as a writer.
"One of the biggest challenges of talented writers is learning to balance your pieces,” Ben-Moussa said. “Although an extensive vocabulary is valued in the classroom, one needs to learn to develop a good voice, make sure your idea is not lost, and know when simplicity will have more of an effect."
The students’ camaraderie extends beyond the classroom. In part, this is because the program requires a commitment to write outside school. One of the group’s outside tasks is to focus on organizing Fragments, the high school’s annual literary journal. The publication also features submission from students in the high school’s other creative writing and photography courses.
"It excites us just to publish our work and have something that we can present to people," said Robertson, who shares editorial duties on the magazine with fellow student Lena Weiss. "We are fortunate to have this magazine."
Robertson, Weiss, and the students in the talented writers program dedicate their class and after school time to arranging, organizing, writing, editing, and laying out fragments not only for publication within Long Beach High School, but for review in national competitions.
The magazine is submitted to several competitions, and along with individual works, is sent to the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association's contest. Students are evaluated in categories of art, prose, poetry, design, graphic design, and cover layout. In the overall, the Long Beach students have achieved the gold and silver medals, with Robertson taking a silver medal for her individual writing submission last year.
The value of the goal-setting philosophies instilled by the talented writers program is priceless lesson for students to learn, said Josh Anisanseo, district coordinator of English Language Arts.“It teaches them to work toward short term goals,” Anisanseo added.
Ben-Moussa finds working on Fragments one of the most rewarding parts of the program. “After an entire of year of learning, writing, editing, criticism, discussion, revising, re-editing, ... seeing the fruits of our labor within that collection of works is inspiring,” she said. Students associated with talented writers and Fragments also enter competitions such as Syracuse University's Scholastic Press Competition, the contests offered by National Council of Teachers of English. Locally, the group is active in the Adelphi Poetry Festival, a day filled with workshops, speakers, presentations, critiques and competitions.
"Every year we come home with something," Koegel said. "We go to the competitions because the kids enjoy it.”
Anisanseo is proud of the talented writers program and especially excited about their recent success in competitions. "Whether the kid goes on to publish or not, the awards are a great asset of the students to have," Anisanseo said.
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