This three-part springtime staff development, designed and led by Millay House Rockland Board Members Jen Munson and Melissa McKinstry, is a fun, practical, online, 2-hour monthly meeting to practice close reading poetry with high school English teacher colleagues from around the state of Maine.
We’ll invite you to take the experience and plentiful resources back to your classroom, try them out, and return the next month to discuss, ask questions, and practice again. We’ll model how you can bring poems by Maine poets, including Millay’s, into your classes for discussion, analysis, creative writing, and assessment.
The registration fee of $40 comes with an annual membership to the Millay House Rockland for the remainder of 2026, which includes The Third Fig Review, notice of all community programs, and invitations to special events.
Course meets: 4-6 pm via Zoom, March 31, April 14, and May 12
Contact Hours: Earn 10 Contact Hours upon completion of the course
Jen Munson has a Master's Degree in Teaching Secondary English and is a National Board Certified English teacher with over 25 years of experience teaching high school English at Camden Hills Regional High School, including over 15 years as an AP Language and Composition teacher. She is also the Operations Manager for Millay House in Rockland, the birthplace of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Currently, she is working on an anthology of Millay’s juvenilia - most of which has never been published.
Melissa McKinstry taught high school English for 25 years. She helped create a school of the arts as well as a new high school, where she chaired the humanities department and developed curriculum. She also served as a fellow and teaching consultant for the San Diego Area Writing Project. She hosts quarterly poetry and jazz evenings and curates a community Poet Tree in San Diego. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in many journals, including Beloit, Adroit, Narrative, and Best New Poets, and was selected for the 2025 New Ohio Review Literary Prize and a 2026 Pushcart Prize. An Adroit Djanikian Scholar and the inaugural writer-in-residence at the Millay House Rockland, she currently serves on the Alumni Council for Pacific University’s MFA program and the Board of the Millay House Rockland. You can also visit her at MelissaMcKinstry.com and on Instagram at Melissa.GranadaTreehouseStudio.
https://millayhouserockland.org/
