The Barlow Public Speaking Contest was begun by Interim Headmaster Thomas Barlow, in 1965, for the purpose of increasing student appreciation of literature and confidence in public speaking. Students in grades 3 through 8 participate.

In the Lower School, students receive guidelines from their homeroom or language arts teachers about the length of poem or prose passage they should choose. Certain poets, Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky and Ken Nesbitt, of www.poetry4kids.com fame, are excluded from students’ choices because of overuse.

Minimum Poem Length	Grade Level
15 lines	3^rd Grade
16 lines	4^th Grade
18 lines	5^th Grade

Before the winter holidays, students are advised to start checking out poetry books, or occasionally prose selections from the Reynolds Library. Poetry generally is classified as:

811 for individual books by one poet

811.008 for books by many poets

Fiction or Prose selections may be found under the author’s last name in F section or in 820 section.

On return from winter break, students bring in their chosen poem for a teacher’s approval. Teachers check that the poem is the right length, suitable for the student, and worthwhile. The poem is then copied three times: one for the student, one for the teacher, and one for the prompter, who is another student in the class who will help the first student learn the poem.

The pair of students, prompter and student, work together on each others’ poems until they can say them to each other with very little problem. Then each serves as prompter to each other when the time comes to recite the poem from memory to each class.

Finally, the top students recite their poems to all their grade level fellow students and teachers in the parlor or Lower School Library with teachers and special guests judging their performance. The top students will present their poems as finalists in the actual Barlow Contest, on the stage of the Mulitz Theatre, for guest judges from the community, while the runners-up will recite their poems as alternates after them, while the judges make their decision about each grade’s winners.

Poems that have been successful in recent years have had certain traits in common: they hold a person’s interest right to the end of the poem; they have an interesting “voice,” or manner of speaking; they are active poems, rather than descriptive, and many are humorous or tell a story.

Website Resources:

Columbia Granger's Poetry Database: School Edition

Columbia Granger's Poetry Database is an index of poetry found in anthologies as well as those found in the collected works of individual poets. This database currently has nearly 50,000 poems in full text and more than 400,000 poem citations. (upper grades)

www.Poets.org has a feature which lets the student hear the

poet speak the poem in many cases. It also has information for teachers and parents. It presents a demanding search, so needs educator or parent to help student around the site.

Search Engines:

www.altavista.com seems to cover poetry and language arts better than some other search engines.

www.google.com also can be useful to find a printed poem

If you're looking for a specific poem or prose passage on the web, search on the title of the poem as a phrase, using quotes:
"Mummy slept late and Daddy fixed breakfast"

or the first line, as a phrase but without punctuation:
"Daddy fixed the breakfast"

or any combination of bits of these, with the poet:
breakfast plate Ciardi

Above all, choose a poem that speaks to you, not a poem someone else recommends. It will be more rewarding to you, if you read a number of poems. You will find one that seems to stick in your mind. That’s the one you should do for the Barlow.