Thermond teaches new creative writing class

On the first day of school, 12 students stepped eagerly into the Creative Writing classroom, glancing at the posters strung across the walls and surveying English and drama teacher Sarah Thermond, who awaited her enthusiastic pupils. By the next week, the class size had increased to 20.

Creative Writing has finally been implemented this year after several years of planning and anticipation. The class helps students improve their writing skills by exploring their individual voices through poetry, short fiction, personal narratives and more.

For years, the English department has wanted to reopen a class similar to the poetry class, which was taught by English teacher Judith Sutton but ended in 2009 due to her retirement. However, they were unable to do so because of a dearth of signups. The class was offered this year in the hope it would attract and keep a large enough group

Although Thermond already runs the drama department and teaches an English 10 class, she took on the challenge of teaching a new course. Her experience with creativity-based classes and the English department’s support helped her with organizing and teaching the new class.

“Thanks to [their] help, I have all the framework, but now it is up to me to design the daily routines and create rubrics, assignment sheets and the grading system,” Thermond said.

In addition, said Thermond, finding reading material  from a variety of sources and creating lesson plans and lectures from scratch is difficult.

“‘[Because of this], I am spending a lot of my free time at libraries and bookstores looking for excerpts that will be good examples of certain literary devices,” Thermond said.

Since larger assignments, such as personal narratives, are more common in this class than in a normal English class, Thermond is unable to spend too much time grading assignments.

Even with all the information and lesson plans, Thermond said she is still adjusting to the curriculum.

“Luckily, I’ve got a great class that is very understanding of the fact that I am still working out the logistics,” Thermond said.

The students, along with Thermond, are also enjoying the new class. Senior Lisa Yu said she decided to take this class to improve her writing while working with peers who share the same passion.

“The class is very casual and I feel very comfortable in the environment,” Yu said.

Like the students, Thermond has enjoyed the class so far.

“I think that the students I have will work well with me to try and achieve everything we are interested in as efficiently as possible,” Thermond said.