Jamie Johnson

Through "Kids are Poets…They Just Don't Know It" program, Johnson plans to provide creative methods to teach basic literacy skills to McKinley's kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Recognizing that today's students are inundated with games, music and other gadgets, the library media specialist looks forward to the day when students will be equally excited to come to the Literacy Lab to listen to electronic books, write stories, research papers, develop poetry writing skills and create e-greeting cards. To introduce students to the literacy lab, Johnson will collaborate with teachers to teach a poetry unit that includes learning how to write poetry, using digital photos to illustrate poetry, publishing poems on an e-book anthology and presenting poems at a POETRY SLAM. Johnson foresees each child reading their poem from the e-book anthology at the POETRY SLAM to the sound of applauses from peers, parents and family members. Through this project, students will be enriched by improving their writing skills, increasing self-motivation and confidence to write and publish work and strengthening computer and public speaking skills. Johnson is a resident of Noble.