Two Winsor Students Present at National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 2024 Annual Convention was held in Boston November 23–24. English Faculty Lisa Stringfellow, who recently taught a masterclass during all-school assembly, presented at the convention and invited two Winsor students to participate. 

Ms. Stringfellow’s session was entitled “Diversifying Verse: Expanding the Poetic Canon by Including BIPOC Poets in Classrooms and Collections.” She presented alongside three other children’s and middle-grade authors—Valerie Bolling, Suma Subramaniam, and Padma Venkatraman—all of whom are on the leadership team of an online community called Diverse Verse. 

According to their website, the organization exists to build, grow, and sustain a supportive community of poetry writers, readers, and educators that provides a safe and positive space to sustain and nurture diverse verse. To do so, the organization provides resources for teachers, librarians, and readers such as lesson plans, educational activity sparks, book lists, and more. 

During the 2023–24 school year, Ms. Stringfellow’s Class I students participated in a Diverse Verse spring poetry competition entitled “Poems for Hope 2024.” Two Winsor students won awards. Now in Class II, Eve Kuhlmann ’31 and Annika Thakarar ’31 shared their poems during the “Diversifying Verse” session at the convention, which was attended by a group of educators, including many members of the Winsor English Department. 

“The poems were inspiring,” said Winsor School English Department Head Courtney Jackson. She noted, “It was such a great experience for [the students] to present in a public and professional setting. They did a wonderful job!”

With many authors in town for the NCTE Convention, Ms. Stringfellow additionally organized a Black Creatives Children’s Book Fair at the Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library. Ranging from picture books to middle-grade and YA, over 20 authors of children’s books were in attendance to sign books and offer activities such as story time, ’zine making, and Q&A sessions. 

Ms. Stringfellow is the author of two books, A Comb of Wishes (Quill Tree Books, January 2023) and Kingdom of Dust (Quill Tree Books, August 2024).