(November 22, 2005) — “Whom bomb? We bomb’d them! Whom bomb? We bomb’d them!” Red-faced and on the verge of hysterical laughter, juniors Myra Castillo and Yelena Akopyan shouted the audacious phrases of Allen Ginsburg’s poem, “Hum Bom.” The rest of the class listened on the edge of their seats as the exhilaration of the poem overtook the moment. “We tried to read [the poems] with passion because it would have been boring to listen to ten poems that were read monotonously,” Castillo said. Her group had been given two of the most radical poets of the bunch (Allen Ginsburg and Marge Piercy) and were teaching their classmates about them in Diana McGrath’s AP American Literature class. McGrath’s AP students have been involved with this poetry project since Oct. 26. To keep their classmates interested, Mirzayan said that her group used different teaching techniques and tried to personalize the information they were relating to the class. For instance, they decided to make a collage for Ginsburg’s poem, “A Supermarket in California” and a video interview of Marge Piercy, with junior Anashe Bandari acting as the poet. Many other groups have demonstrated creativity in trying to educate their peers. Junior Nick Lee, for example, showed the class Flash animations that summarized the lives of Walt Whitman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. When asked why he chose to use animation as a method of presenting, he said, “In tenth grade I made a number of flash animations for history class, and they were really popular. Plus, cartoons and videos generally attract a lot of attention from the class.” Slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, games, crossword puzzles and even music were also used by many groups to effectively instruct their classmates. Although the students learned a lot of teaching methods, McGrath says her ultimate goal is to help students identify famous American poets through the differences in their writing. “I want the students to be able to look at a poem and say, ‘Oh that looks like E.E. Cummings’ or ‘I wonder if that’s Marge Piercy because it’s feminist writing,’” McGrath said. In selecting her poets, she alsomade sure they represented a colorful variety of stylistic and cultural backgrounds. Her selection of poets includes feminist writers like Anne Sexton, African American poets like Nikki Giovanni, beat generation poets like Ginsburg and also classical American writers such as Dylan Thomas. She also wanted to include poets that would be appealing and have an impact on teenagers. Mirzayan said she was truly inspired by Piercy. “Her poetry made me feel like it’s okay not to look like a model.”