Terry Wallace, who has taught at the district for 43 years, created a platform for students to practice their craft and seek publication
Expository. Narrative. Argumentative. Persuasive. As the years passed and state testing carved out more rigorous standards for English teachers, Terry Wallace found she was devoting all her class time to the “big four” writing categories on the mandatory assessments.
While those categories are certainly important to students’ success beyond high school, Wallace’s pupils yearned to exercise their creative muscles, and she missed the energy that filled her classroom when she would teach poetry or fiction.
“There was really no breathing room to do anything else in class but those particular writings,” Wallace said. “This is what we think children should learn now, we’re doing a lot more informative text rather than pure literature. They’re losing the great examples of literature and the ability to see life through the eyes of a writer — not a technical writer.”
Despite more than four decades of teaching under her belt, Wallace was anything but complacent when she moved from teaching sixth grade to eighth grade at Palmyra High School. Determined to give her hungry students a place to enjoy what she calls the “flavor” of writing, the Writer’s Cafe, where aspiring authors and poets spend their 40-minute lunch periods honing their skills, was born.
The Writer’s Cafe is a critique group and workshop not unlike the ones many college-level English students experience in their classes. Every other month, Wallace and her budding wordsmiths focus on a new style of writing. It wasn’t long before Wallace came upon Wee Authors, a national K-8 publishing contest where students can submit their poems and short stories. She encouraged her students to submit their work and was ecstatic to learn five of them were selected for publication.
Julia Klahn, now in the ninth grade at PHS, sent in her self-referential poem unsure of what to expect. Much to her delight, she, along with Diane Christopher, Erin Wolf, Kelliann Gillispie and Marisa Kidd-Williams, is now able to call herself a published writer.
“I thought there was a slim chance for us to win. I was shocked when I found out that five of us actually made it in,” Khlahn said. “You don’t have many opportunities like this in life, and it’s a great way to get yourself out there and maybe inspire other kids that want to be poets.”
This year, with a focus on short stories and flash fiction and a whole new group of eighth graders to mold into the next Thoreaus and Brontes, Wallace, a decorated teacher, is earning some accolades of her own. She was invited to submit a presenter proposal for the New Jersey Gifted and Talented Conference to share the principles of the Writer’s Café to other school districts in the state. Wallace is also working on a project to demonstrate the importance of writing and communication across all fields by asking professionals to take a selfie and include an explanation of why writing is important to their work.
The true reward for the ebullient literature lover, though, is instilling a passion for learning in her students.
“I love teaching, it’s a passion. They ask me, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I don’t know! Whenever the joy wanes away, then I’ll retire. But for right now, I still have that joy,” she said. “The principal and the superintendent like to joke that they’re going to chain me to my room.”
