Poet Theresa Davis Inspires Galloway Juniors

By Head of Community Engagement Gordon Mathis

On Monday, January 30, Theresa Davis, an award-winning spoken word poet, entranced juniors for 90 minutes as she performed her own work and taught them to create their own poems. The students, many working outside of their comfort zones, spontaneously composed poems on the concept of “comfort” and performed their work in front of their peers. 

The 2011 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion and the McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology, Davis prepared students for a project in the American History class. American History teacher Dr. Margaret Montgomery assigned her students to create their own spoken word poems based on research about a range of actors chosen from the chronology of US history.

Working with Galloway’s Arts Integration Specialist Megan Cramer, Dr. Montgomery developed a project that brings American history alive in a contemporary format and is relevant for students living in the twenty-first century, and Theresa Davis provided the foundation for an example of project-based learning for all juniors in American history.