High School Students Compete in Spanish-Language Poetry Slam

A Spanish-language poetry slam featuring 45 heritage speakers of Spanish from Rogers High School was the culminating event Oct. 15 for an Arkansas Humanities Council mini-grant awarded to Freddie Bowles, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Arkansas, and Jessica Fay Sliger, Spanish teacher at Rogers High School and a graduate of the university's Master of Arts in Teaching program.

Bowles and Sliger created a poetry unit designed to promote literacy in both English and Spanish for Sliger's "Spanish for Native Speakers" classes at both Rogers High School and Crossroads Alternative School. The theme of the unit, Cruzando Fronteras (Crossing Borders), gave students the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences as students of Latino heritage. Students listened to and read a variety of poems that explored the topic of identity in both English and Spanish before writing their own name poems, bio poems and free-verse poems.

The poetry slam at Rogers High School offered students the opportunity to showcase their poems before an audience of peers, parents and guests. Four Spanish language professionals were invited to judge: Mia Soler Fay of Joplin, Mo., daughter of a former poet laureate of Colombia; Lisa Thrailkill, Rogers High School Spanish teacher; Tammy Peterson, Spanish teacher for the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts and president of the Arkansas American Association of Spanish and Portuguese Teachers; and Veronica Farfan-Leal, Master of Arts in Teaching intern at the University of Arkansas.

The University of Arkansas Bookstore donated prizes for the winners and gifts for the judges, and the Rogers Wal-Mart store on Walnut donated funds to buy frames for each student's poem. Food for the event was provided by Acambaro restaurant and Pupuseria Salvadoreño #3, both in Rogers.

Students competed in three categories: Best Overall, Most Passionate and Most Creative. The top 20 students were invited to participate in the Spanish Festival at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith on Oct. 19. Sliger's students won first, second, third and fourth places, a sweep, in the poetry slam competition at the event. Students' poems will be published in Azahares, the UAFS Spanish literary journal.