Alumni News

On Tuesday, April 3rd, over 150 students from around Long Island attended Adelphi University’s annual Poetry Festival, which included workshops, a student poetry reading, and a keynote address by the award-winning poet, essayist and novelist Ms. Toi Derricotte. At the end of the conference, several students – including two students from the Waldorf School of Garden City – received awards for poems submitted prior to the event. Waldorf Junior Caleb Yuan received an Excellence in Poetry award for his slam poem, “What is Justice?” and Phoebe McGlone, also a junior, received an Excellence in Poetry award for her villanelle, “The Dark Night.” All the students took part in a small writing workshops led by Ms. Derricotte – a nationally acclaimed poet who has published five volumes of poetry, as well as a literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Alexios Kritas, Waldorf’s high school English teacher and creative writing club advisor, said “I am incredibly proud of our students. Throughout the year, we examine poetry in our daily English classes as well as in the Main Lesson courses and these students applied their experiences in the classroom towards this fine achievement.” Main Lessons are seminar-type classes that are central to the high school student’s academic experience and are unique to Waldorf education. These courses meet every day and focus on a specific topic, in a defined sequence, for 4 week blocks of time. Among the English Main Lessons offered are Dante’s Inferno, Transcendentalism, and Russian Literature. The extended length of the Main Lesson enables students to approach the topic through many modalities, adding depth and breadth to their understanding.

Caleb Yuan