Warren Longmire, Curriculum Creator

After teaching short-form poetry classes at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in 2023, we’re thrilled to launch a free, six-week short-form poetry program for 6th graders at Dr. Henry H. Davis Elementary early next year, with Cooper’s Poynt Family School joining us in April 2025 during National Poetry Month. These sessions are built on our new healing-centered poetry curriculum, which includes:

• Meditational icebreakers to encourage introspection.
• A history of short-form poetry in different cultures.
• Step-by-step lessons that support students as they progress from crafting single poetic lines to writing fully developed haiku.

We’ve designed this curriculum to stand ardize all lessons and increase the effectiveness of teaching short-form poetry to elementary students. We’re proud to say this effort is being shaped and supported by experts in the field like university professor Jaime Grookett, MSEd, who teaches a variety of graduate and undergraduate classes in English education, Philadelphia-based author and poet Warren Longmire (also a current board member and one of our previous staff members), and Vanessa Woods, LPC, who is editing and providing feedback on the current curriculum as it stands, to ensure we’re using proven and effective approaches to healing-centered teaching