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| Writing:
Stuyvesant's "Secret Strength" by ABIGAIL DEUTSCH It is quiet in a sun-filled room on the tenth floor. Pens scratch on paper and a student looks up, squints, and sighs. Poetry teacher Emily Moore grins slightly, prepared to squirt any reluctant writer with water from her plastic fish. Poets persevere through the most trying times, and this term has tested Stuyvesant's writers. In the absence of English teachers Judith Hawk and Douglas Goetsch, who left Stuyvesant permanently after last year, and Katherine Fletcher, who is on maternity leave, Moore teaches the only creative writing class this term. Nonetheless, students continue to make their mark in the writing world--though the rest of the school may not know it. Writing is Stuyvesant's "secret strength," said Fletcher; while Intel finalists receive "so much attention, every year writers win thousands of dollars in scholarships, but they get no attention." But English teacher Annie Thoms said that while she would like "to see more of an appreciation of writing," it is "more on its way than in previous years." And Moore, who came to Stuyvesant this year, has found teaching poetry here "amazing." "It's an incredibly smart and driven school, and it's a really exciting school," she said. "The intellectual and creative freedoms offered here are amazing. It's so big that you can run poetry, three fiction classes, one American Short Stories." Fletcher added that students are "incredibly smart, creative thinkers." Writing is a way to counteract the often stressful Stuyvesant experience. "Students can go through all their classes and not be heard or seen as a result of class size or the set curriculum," Moore said. "In writing classes I try to see the student and really hear what they're saying, why they have that opinion--it's not just about the right answer. Writing nurtures something that needs to be addressed." Fletcher said writing helps students "find their voices" in a school whose size can make them feel voiceless. "It's very hard to feel you matter as an individual when you're one of 3,000," she said. Writing classes are "an outlet that Stuy students might not find elsewhere, where everything they have to say does matter." Hearing students is vital to the process of reading and grading student poetry, according to Moore. "The first and most important thing is that I hear what they're saying, the unusual and emotive thing, and I write, 'I love this evocation of spring or loss,' so the student knows I've heard them." Senior Dina Mishra, who is co-editor in chief of the literary magazine Caliper, agreed that writing stands apart from the rest of the Stuyvesant experience. "Writing hasn't been tainted by the numbers game at Stuy," she said, adding that the best thing about her writing class was "the whole idea of muutual respect, of not being in competition with your classmates." Junior Katarzyna Kozanecka, who has won awards for her poetry, cited "the stress on measuring knowledge through multiple choice tests, the calculator-oriented way of assigning grades" as detractatory from the creative mind. In the creative writing classes she took as was a Stuyvesant student, Thoms said that it was okay "to write about things that mattered and were important to you and shaped who you were. I found myself getting to know [my classmates] unlike in any other classes" as she read and responded to their writing. The greatest gift, Thoms said, was "confidence in my own creativity." Another advantage of writing, Kozanecka said, is "the feeling that I can effect change--I choose my words. Writing has given me a reason to study all other subjects. As I become more of a writer I look for more meaning in my classes. I look for concepts that I can apply to the greater planet. Through writing I hope to improve my country Poland, and to improve my country I need some knowledge of all subject areas." In the vein of integrating different subject matter, she added, "The reason I'm taking calculus next year, besides parental pressure, is: I hope to find poetry in math! I want it all to come together!" Writing classes make people better all-around English students, the teachers said. Fletcher said she strives for her students to read as writers--to view published writers as colleagues who grapple with the same choices novice writers do. Then, she said, "you understand literature better, and you understand your own writing better." Thoms said the focus on language she pursued in creative writing classes improved her as a creative writer, an essayist, and a thinker. Aside from classes, Caliper, the literary magazine, Writing on the Wall, which publishes student prose and poetry under glass cases in hallways, and Open Mics provide additional outlets. Senior Emily Claman organizes Wednesday workshop sessions in a SoHo cafe. Students' poems have been a pleasure--and a surprise. "The writers at the school are so good," said Moore, who used to be a poetry reader at the New Yorker. "Here I found very sophisticated style, the ideas are unusual, the feelings are deep, the form is at a high level." Mishra said student writing was sometimes so brilliant that upon reading it she would think, "I could have seen this in a book." "The best thing about poetry in general is that students write in so many different voices," Moore said, adding, "and sometimes something works, but you don't know why it works."
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