Schools
Oak Forest HS Students Meet Author Kwame Alexander
Alexander's advice to students was 1. Read, 2. Read, and 3. Read
Oak Forest High School American literature students Khira Chandler, DaVonte Haynes, Hannah McMaster, Zack Lipine met author Kwame Alexander (center) at his reading at Senn High School for the Chicago Humanities Festival EdLab program. The students had traveled to Senn High School to listen to Alexander read part of his new book, Booked, at the Chicago Humanities Festival EdLab Program. After the reading, students were excited to have an opportunity to ask questions of the author. Oak Forest High School teachers Jen Schanz and Caitlyn McMahon took students to the event. Schanz said, “Kwame was so great with kids. He visits 4 schools a week!”
Booked is a novel written in verse about a kid who loves soccer and hates reading. Oak Forest High School student Mat Davis asked Alexander, “Do you prefer writing in poetry or in full pages and then turning it into poetry?” Kwame said that he likes to write poems because that's what he started with and that is his favorite.
When he first started out writing, he wrote The Crossover, while listening to Jazz music at Panera. He submitted The Crossover to 18 publishers who rejected his work because they said that basketball and poetry don’t mix. He published it himself and when publisher Houghton Mifflin saw it, they LOVED it. He said, "It's not about how you fail. It's about how you bounce back."
Kwame spoke about his parents, who were writers that forced him to read books and write reports on them. Then he stopped reading. He even ripped pages out of books. His dad was angry and punished him. His breakthrough in reading and writing came in high school when he saw this girl who he said was f-i-n-e. To ask her to prom, he stood up on a cafeteria table and recited poetry to her. She said, "I'll think about it." Two weeks later, she asked if he gotten a tux yet for prom because she'd love to go with him. After that, he was hooked on the written word and its power!
Students asked him for the advice he would give aspiring writers. He shared the three pieces of writing advice that was his most important: 1. Read 2. Read 3. Read.
