A piece of free-verse poetry captured the  grand-prize at the third annual Day of the Writer at Manteca High.

The winning entry was entered by student Robbie Narducci who wrote his poetic piece during his Wood II class under Samuel Dolson, Industrial Technology teacher and department chair.

Narducci’s prize is a $50 Visa gift card compliments of the Manteca High Academic Booster Club.

The writing contest was held in conjunction with Manteca High’s annual Day of the Writer event in which every teacher devotes at least 10 minutes of class time to a specific writing activity. The writing themes this year included Two Voice Poem for the Science classes, Six Room Poem for the Foreign Language Class, Advice Column for Physical Education, and Found Poem/Visual Writing for the elective classes.



The other winners in the writing contest, with their respective classes and teachers are:

• Genesis Torres – English class taught by Stephanie Hjelmstad who is also the school’s activities director.

• Anthony Van – Science class taught Mitchell Mesimer.

• Albert Seymore – Spanish class taught by Chris Burr who is also a foreign language teacher as well as the department chair.

• Fernando Candalas – Physical Education class taught by Andrea Hiatt.

• Josh Vinson – Mathematics class taught Deanna Diggs.

• Eddie Smith – Social Science class taught by Justin Coenenberg.

The teacher winner was Michael McCullough who teaches English and is the department’s co-chair.

Sarah Haskett, who was in charge of this year’s Day of the Writer while regular coordinator Elyce Silva is on maternity leave, said this writing program was “started to bring attention to writing and to make our curriculum stronger.”

It was also developed “to show that you can learn better in all subjects, not just English, when you use writing and we wanted to make content more accessible to different writing techniques,” she added.

It was Silva who “got the idea” for the Day of the Writer “from the Great Valley Writing Project,” Haskett explained.

“She was part of that and brought it to our campus,” she said.

Below is grand-prize winner Narducci’s winning five-stanza poem:

“Alive?/The veins are open/No water may travel willingly/It is left dry and weathered

“Shape, colored, and conformed/My T.V. is its tombstone/Yet, its carcass still holds strong

“Its knots, like eyes, look back at me/A warm look…/A stain, its natural blood/it is the color of honey

“Confused I am/Stressed and cluttered it is

“I ask myself…

“I tell myself…/It is alive”