Congratulations to Samara Huggins (10th), who won first place in the school’s Poetry Out Loud competition held on Friday, January 23. Samara performed “The Kiss” by Robert Graves and “The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth. The second place winner was Misha McDaniel (10th) and Jared Jones (9th) took third place.
Poetry Out Loud is a national competition developed through a partnership between The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The contest encourages the nation's youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation.
Students are judged in the following categories: dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, overall performance, physical performance, level of complexity, and finally, voice and articulation. Whitefield students first performed their poetry in the classroom, and then classroom finalists moved onto the school wide competition.
Poetry Out Loud was launched in high schools nationwide in the spring of 2006, and became an annual tradition at Whitefield in 2012. The program has grown to involve millions of students across the country. State winners receive a cash prize and all expense paid trip to compete for the national championship in Washington D.C.
Samara, who won the contest last year and became a finalist at the regional level, will advance to The North Georgia Regional Competition on February 7.
Poetry Out Loud participants: Bryce Belyeu (12th), Kristen Corliss (11th), Lucy Eichelberger (9th), Maggie Leigh Faulk (10th), Jordan Greer (11th), Michael Hebert (12th), Samara Huggins (10th), Thomas Joiner (9th), Jared Jones (9th), Kerry Martin (11th), Misha McDaniel (10th), Mitchell Ryan (10th), Justin Samples (12th), Anna Schierbaum (10th), and Matt Snyder (12th).