What happens during a CPITS workshop?
Each workshop session is usually 50 minutes to one hour long, during which time the poet-teacher will meet with students in their regular classroom, with the classroom teacher present. Typically, the poet meets with each class once a week for the length of the residency, though other arrangements can be made to accommodate the school schedule, the poet’s availability, and the classroom teacher’s plans. The purpose of CPITS workshops is to encourage students to write and the emphasis is on exploration of the creative process rather than the product—though students will usually produce poems in every workshop session. In a typical session, the poet-teacher will present model poems from contemporary literature, along with his or her own work and published work by the student’s peers— poetry that is accessible and exciting, presented in an enthusiastic way. There will be discussions of poetic elements and techniques, such as wordplay, imagery, metaphor, rhythm, etc., and then a writing exe
