This year, ACA joined over 18,000 schools across the country to compete in Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation competition. It was met with enormous enthusiasm on the part of our students and was a great success! This will become an annual event as we continue to encourage our students to love poetry and to perform it well.
The competition started in the classroom; late last semester, every ACA student in grades 9-12 performed a poem of their choice from the list provided by Poetry Out Loud, and on January 12, nine winners competed in our gym in front of grades 6-12. ACA’s very own poet, Mr. McClatchey, served as our master of ceremonies, joined by a panel of literature teachers as judges who scored each student based on their poem presentation. Senior Maria Harle was our winner, with sophomore Miles McNeese scoring so well that a runoff competition was required to determine our winner. Maria will compete in the Metro Atlanta Regional competition on February 16 at the Woodruff Arts Center. Congratulations to each one of our classroom winners for helping us launch Poetry Out Loud this year!
Kaida Clarke
Jim Coleman
Hudson Kreafle
Sally Berry
Miles McNeese
Andres Wright
London Morton-Weeks
Maria Harle
Michael Gullett