Work On NMS’s Literary Magazine Continues

By Eliza Hallabeck

While students worked at tables, drawing and turning student writing into works of art, after school on Tuesday, February 7, Newtown Middle School art teachers Arlene Spoonfeather and Claudia Mitchell had multiple editions of Opus Optima, the school’s literary magazine, spread out on a table.

With the school district’s focus on writing across the curriculum that has been prevalent during the last two school years, Ms Spoonfeather said art in the district has always incorporated writing, and the literary magazine is just one example.

Opus Optima is published annually and sold during the school’s Celebration of the Arts night, set for May 1 this year. As in years in the past, students in two clubs, Literary Magazine Editors and Literary Magazine Artists, have been hard at work creating and overseeing the submissions for this year’s edition.

Last year’s Opus Optima had roughly 140 students involved from written submission to drawing and editing. Writing submissions come from all students in the school interested in having their work published in the literary magazine, which includes full color.

The middle school’s literary magazine has been published for the past 30 years, although it was not always in the format of a literary magazine.

According to Ms Mitchell, it began as a journal, and by 1988, when she started working at NMS, it was already an institution at the school.

When Ms Mitchell took over the publication, student artwork was included, and, through a former connection, Martien Leroux has been printing the publication since.

“The quality of the publishing is just amazing,” said Ms Mitchell, noting the color highly detailed pages of the 2011 Opus Optima.

Ms Leroux donates her time each year, and the school club only covers the cost of printing, which is met through sales of the magazine.

All of the money from selling the publication, primarily during the school’s annual Celebration of the Arts night, goes to printing and creating the magazine the following school year, according to both Ms Spoonfeather and Ms Mitchell. Contributing students can purchase the publication at half price. The sale and donations to the program, the teachers said, are critical in producing the magazine the following year.

The artists in the Literary Magazine Artists club work to illustrate the submitted writing of their peers, Ms Mitchell said, and every year the cover illustration is given to an eighth grade Art Enrichment students as a project and the most effective cover is chosen.

“Each year is different,” said Ms Mitchell. “It really hits on the pulse that is happening in the school, in the world, and therefore happening to the kids.”

Opus Optima has also received awards from a National Council of Teachers of English contest, that pools high school and middle school literary magazines from Fairfield County together for judging. In 2011 Opus Optima received an “Excellent” mark in the contest, and in 2010 it received the highest achievement of “Superior.”

At one table on Tuesday, eighth graders Trevor Gaines and Felix Summ were busy drawing. Both students agreed working on the literary magazine is fun.

“I think it is great,” said Felix. “You get your work shown. Everybody who gets the magazine can see your work.”

Across the room, eighth grade student Amy Pruner was working to illustrate one of her own writing submissions.

“I love art,” she said.