Booing Death Inspires Young Writers

Seattle public school language arts teacher Christina Roux invited Pamela Sackett into her classroom again (see November 2013 below), this time for her 2014 University of Washington Summer Youth Program High School Course under the auspices of Puget Sound Writing Project (PSWP).

Pamela performed excerpts from Booing Death. Some excerpts included performance with Ms. Roux’s talented teacher’s assistant, Julie Olsen, who has an impressive background in theatre and opera. Pamela provided musical interludes between each reading and revisited the classroom a second time to conduct a specially-designed exercise to inspire the students to delve deeper and more courageously into their writing and reflecting process.

The writing program description, in part: “Improve your opportunities in life by learning to write well. Study strategies, habits, and fundamentals of great writers that lead to effective writing.” Sackett’s Booing Death excerpts were a substantial part of the class reader, keeping company with the likes of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roethke, Willaim Faulkner, Mark Twain and Charlotte Bronte, among other notables.