Lupe Mendez, Texas Poet Laureate for 2022 came and taught a couple of Upper School English classes the first week of October. Mendez is a writer, educator and activist.
Mendez is the author of Why I Am Like Tequila, a winner of the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. Mendez is also an activist and founded the Librotraficante Movement and Tintero Projects, a Texas-based organization.
Instead of the normal lecture-style class, he shared the process of a writing workshop and throughout the class, Mendez gave a few writing prompts.
“It was really engaging because he took such a creative route with teaching us,” senior Ava Klein said.
In the Literature and Philosophy class, Mendez’s first prompt to that class was to draw a birds-eye view of the students’ houses and label each room.
“He guided us through how to describe each room without saying the name of the room,” said senior Hanlon Shedd. “We were describing the room without saying the name of it, and he gave examples such as explaining what we do in the room or sharing memories that happen in the room.”
These examples got the students to really think about each room.
“One of the rooms I picked was the dining room, and I wrote how I have family meals but how I also have family fights,” Shedd said.
These activities allowed students to be creative, and in other English classes, students had different prompts.
In the Multicultural Literature and Modern Poetry class, Mendez even talked through one of his poems from his book, Why I am like Tequila.
“It was really cool to hear all about the process from the actual perspective of the author and learn all about his process,” Klein said.
