Creative Read -a- thon

At the Norway Public Library on a cold and rainy Wednesday night, students  from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School  brightened up the town. Mrs. Chodosh's period 3 and 6 classes came up with their own pieces to read to a small crowd of family and friends. These pieces ranged from short little lyrics, long rants and stories, and songs played and sung on guitar. Funny, serious, inspiring and a bit creepy, all pieces were read aloud and were followed with a round of applause. Not all pieces were hand written though, one reader chose to speak her mind through a quote from a famous book called "Waiting for Alaska."

Although the reading was simple, the overall impact is much larger.

"It's more than just writing and sharing pieces. This is a Library. It's a real life setting. It adds another layer to the writing experience when students have to read their pieces to the public," Ms. Chodosh said.

Thirty pieces of original writing was read by twenty students. Group readings, which consisted of a class reading one poem line-by-line, was a different approach to reading aloud.

"I liked that these poems were experimental," said Chodosh. We needed more time to practice and make the poems better, but the point was we did them anyway." The group readings just as well as the individually read pieces. However, some pieces were read not performed. An awkwardness in the voice turns the listener away and a shot at learning about the reading is lost. Some of these readings did lose the listener. With a tad bit more practice on how to use the voice, these pieces could have been great.

A decent turnout of over 50 people was a good amount for this small library space. The crowd self seated in wooden chairs which formed a half circle around the readers' podium. We all sat rather clustered but no one complained. The room was comfortable despite the lack space to walk. Students sat in the front and guests sat in the back, due to the students each taking turns reading their pieces.

The night went well. Almost all the students read and each had his or her own little spin. The two pieces that caught my attention were one done by Kristina Rogers and another by  Bradey Newman. Rogers's reading was about what inspired her to go into a field of forensic science. The inspiration, although shocking, immediately made me fascinated. Right down the road from Rogers's house a family was brutally murdered, and the killer, just smiled as he was sent to jail. She asked herself why he could do such a thing, and how he could just smile it off.

Newman's piece was a bit more, humorous. He wrote about himself in Wal-Mart as he was attacked by monkeys. It was called Monkey Attack. Although the poem was in no way inspirational, it did grasp my attention. The absolute ridiculousness of the writing and how he put a picture in my mind about an actual attack in Wal-Mart by monkeys actually lead me to believe that this could happened.

A couple of people decided not to read. Instead they had others read for them, This didn't take away anything from the show.

At the end of the show, drinks and snacks were offered and the book "Bits and Pieces" was on sale for $5 dollars. "Bits and Pieces" is a book comprised of pieces written by the students, most of which were included in the reading.

Creative Writing was an elective before becoming a core class in 2009. Seniors can now take this course if they love to write and get a full credit in English. "The class has become a popular choice for seniors," said Chodosh. Next year there are going to be three full classes of people who want to write.

These types of public readings should never be swept under the mat. This should certainly happen more often. Maybe with three classes there will be more than one opportunity to hear writing from our OHCHS seniors.

Good job to everyone who wrote and read.