Crowd-source poem gives hope

■ Sixth-graders come together for project even though they are apart.

Even though they can’t be together in person, sixth-grade students at Siloam Springs Intermediate School collaborated to create a poem with a message of hope during the covid-19 pandemic.

More than 200 students contributed to the crowd-source poem, titled “Hope,” as part of an English language arts assignment, according to Joli Sotallaro, who organized the project with the help of fellow sixth-grade English teachers Teresa Bollwine, Alix Laws and Rusty Perkins.

Sotallaro got the idea for the project from a story she heard on National Public

Radio in February about a crowd-sourced Valentines poem. After talking with the other teachers in her department, they decided to do something similar with students during the time of covid-19, she said. Students in the Siloam Springs School District and across the state are finishing the school year through remote instruction because of the pandemic.

“Hope is something our students have alluded to so we thought that would be a really good thing to do,” she said.

Students were given the prompt to finish the line “Hope is…” Some wrote several lines, while others just wrote one, she said.

Students really took time to think and reflect on their feelings and give individualized answers, Law said.

“I am so proud to see kids going above and beyond, giving superior answers,” Law said.

Once all the contributions were put together, teachers sorted them by theme and put them into categories such as imagery, nature, sports, other people and feelings inside yourself, then combined them, Sotallaro said. Teachers found that many students had similar big ideas, such as “Hope is courage” or “Hope is trust,” and edited them down, combining the ideas into lists and phrases, such as “It is power, strength and patience.”

Once the poem was complete, the teachers put it in a video with music and shared it on YouTube and social media.

Law said the finished product moved her to tears. The response to the poem from students and the community has also been very positive, Sotallaro said.

The poem gave students an opportunity to speak out and a platform to share their creativity and emotions during a difficult time, Law said. Students are really missing each other and the project also gave them a sense of camaraderie to work on something together from their individual homes, she said.

“I hope that students see they do have a voice and what they say matters, that people listen to them and there is value in their opinion,” Sotallaro said. “I also hope they see they can make a positive change and they can inspire other people, just because they are young and things are hard, they still have the power within them to impact the world in a positive way.”

The assignment is just

Our students are innovative, creative and very willing to adapt and learn and just seeing them be able to do some pretty amazing things in such a challenging time has been very eye-opening and encouraging.

one example of the remote school work students have been doing. Working remotely has been positive in may ways, but there have also been difficulties, Sotallaro said.

“Our students are innovative, creative and very willing to adapt and learn and just seeing them be able to do some pretty amazing things in such a challenging time has been very eye-opening and encouraging,” she said.

Law said Sotallaro has helped her see teaching remotely as an opportunity to use different resources and do unique projects, such as the poem, instead of a setback. Teachers are working hard to keep students engaged and accountable, as kids struggle with obstacles such as a lack of access to wireless internet, Law said.

Not seeing students every day has also been challenging, Sotallaro said.

“We became teachers to work with students and build those relationships,” she said. “It’s definitely a learning curve to learn how to build those relationships without being able to see them every day and having as much time as we would normally have with them.”

Joli Sotallaro Siloam Springs Intermediate School English Teacher