Day Eight’s poets-in-the-schools program brings local poets to perform and teach in DC schools. Many exceptional local poets have never had educator training. This professional development opportunity is designed to provide an introduction to lesson plan development and program evaluation.
Applications are open now for poets interested to participate in Day Eight’s 2026 professional development program, co-directed by Robert Bettmann and Regie Cabico. The program is offered free of charge for up to ten participants and five poets will receive a $500 honoraria to participate.
Interested to attend? Submit your information using the form below.
The four components of the program are:
An in-person training Wednesday evening August 26, 6:00-8:30pm at MLK library. Sample lesson plans will be reviewed and grade standards and grade standard alignment will be introduced.
Following the August session, participants are expected to draft lesson plans for two age groups (built around a poem by the participant.) The PD program teachers will provide written feedback to each participant on the lesson plans.
On dates to be determined in September and October, participants will observe Regie Cabico teaching a 50-minute poet-in-the-schools program at one of Day Eight’s partner schools.
On dates to be determined in October and November, each participant will teach a 50-minute poet-in-the-schools program at one of Day Eight’s partner schools, observed by one of the PD program teachers. The observing PD program teacher will provide written feedback and coaching to each participant based on the observation.
Participants that successfully complete all components of the program may expect to be offered additional paid opportunities with the organization.
About the Program Teachers
Regie Cabico appeared on 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and NPR’s Snap Judgement and has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Stanley Tucci & Jesse Eisenberg. He received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital in New York. As a former member of the New York Neo Futurists, he received three NY Innovative Theater Award nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which won the 2006 Award for Best Performance Art Production. He is former Artist in Residence at NYU’s Asian Pacific American Studies Program and has served as faculty at Banff’s Spoken Word Program. With Brittany Fonte, he co-edited a collection of North American and United Kingdom queer poetry, a 2014 Lamda Literary Award Nominee for Best Anthology. An editor of the Mid-Atlantic Review, he has led education program and professional development programs for the DC Commission on the Arts, Kennedy Center, US Department of Education, and various state and local councils. He serves as co-director of Day Eight’s summer Writing Camp, which annually provides a full day camp program in partnership with the DC Public Library.
Robert Bettmann is the managing editor for the Mid-Atlantic Review and co-founder of the Jewish Artists of the National Capital Region. He is the author of the book Somatic Ecology and has contributed arts coverage to Washington City Paper, Washingtonian, The DC Line, OvationTV, and more. He served as State Captain for Washington, D.C’s participation in national Arts Advocacy Day from 2010-2014, and a member of the program committee of the State Arts Action Network. He has an MA in Education from George Washington University and a certificate in Public and Non-profit Management from Georgetown University. He was a Kiev Fellow at GWU libraries in 2020 where he researched interwar visual culture. He manages Day Eight’s education programs, including coordinating school partnership and coordinating evaluation of the organization’s in-school and out of school time programs.