I knew Holly was a gifted writer when I first read her freewriting homework and poetry at the beginning of the year. She truly has the heart of a poet and knows how to put her thoughts on paper. She is self-motivated and writes from an inner drive rather than because of a class assignment.
Holly has started a blog to publish her poetry online. One of my dreams when I started the Mr. Blount's Classroom blog was to hopefully inspire my students to start blogs of their own and encourage independent writing. Holly has done that. You can visit Holly's blog, Next Great Idea With Hollister by clicking here.
This week we received notification that Holly's poem "Autumn Leaves" will be published in Creative Communications' A Celebration of Young Poets anthology. Holly had submitted her poem earlier in the year without my knowledge. I think she had forgotten about it too.
As her teacher, I am so proud of Holly for being true to herself, designing her own blog, and for getting her first poem published.
