Arts in the Schools

The goals of this projects are: to instill the arts into the community and public life in our region and support high-quality, age-appropriate arts education for residents of all ages to develop knowledge, skills, and understanding of the arts. This project uses the County Fair as an arts venue by encouraging the community to celebrate literary arts with a poetry reading at the museum. The goal is to encourage the community to utilize its resources, such as the Robert Bly Study, for continued support and celebration of poetry and literary arts. It also gives students an opportunity to work with a career poet who lives in Dawson. The goal is to show students that literary arts is a viable form of self-expression and that it is possible to make a career as a writer, and literary artist. Carlson hopes to transform the student's understanding of poetry. She wants students to be less afraid and intimidated by the art form, and hopes to motivate students to write poetry on their own. The intention with this project is to reveal poetry as a relevant and essential art form, that writing is an appropriate and positive form of self-expression, and that poets exist and practice in the world today. The teaching poet describes the measurement of these goals as follows: I will measure these goals in a series of two surveys. The first will be at the beginning of the residency. I'd like to find out the student's enthusiasm for poetry before the project begins. I'll collect the information to help guide my practice and planning for the residency alongside the Dawson-Boyd High School English Teacher, Sadie Solem. At the end of the project I'll repeat the same series of questions. If the students note a marked change in their replies on the survey I'll have a tool for evaluating the success of the project. I'll also work closely with Solem and ask her for input with regard to the project. I'd like to get two affirmations of things we should continue to do, and to areas that could be improved in the future. I'll also count how many attend the reading, and include a survey that asks community members how often they've visited the Robert Bly Study, and if they've been in the study before. This will give information on whether or not the project succeeds in encouraging the community to use existing literary arts resources.""