BASIS Scottsdale

Students at BASIS Scottsdale collaborate with teacher, Ryan Files, and his guests to study poetry in all of its forms. In addition to writing, they practice performance, recitation, and visual poetics. Ryan says about his experience, “My year at BASIS Scottsdale as a poetry teaching artist consisted of working with students in various forms of poetry including lyrical poetry, haiku, free verse, sestina, villanelle, and many other forms throughout the school year. I utilized different expressions of these works to be not only written, but also allowed students to create vision boards, concrete poems, and to use their voice in the art of spoken word. I was given the opportunity to co-coach one of the students from the class in Poetry Out Loud, and this student went on to win 3rd place in the state for their amazing efforts. I had guest poets from the community come and share their work with the students and made sure to tie in both contemporary and classical poets into the daily lesson plans. The students were able to participate in interesting and unique opportunities such as being a part of an art gallery showcase and creating a compressive multiple-week group project, poetic centos, centered around the concept of community.”