What is the Roem Project?

By Nuerya Nijiati

June 20, 2024

Each year from late December to January, eighth-grade students across teams come together to create the annual Roem project.

For the Roem project, eighth-grade students collaborate to create a music video for an original rap poem, or “Roem,” based on a verse novel. Before choosing these novels, each ELA teacher gave their class a preview of the book choices. They also explained the process and guidelines of making a Roem video, including examples from the years before. For the project, students had the opportunity to work in teams with students from other ELA classes that met during the same class period. Each three-five person project team included at least one person from a different class team and also had an ELA teacher as an advisor. One student, the team leader, was in charge of checking that everyone knew what they were doing and what still needed to be done. Another student, the editor, was responsible for editing the videos that were filmed by the group. With roughly two to three weeks to write their poem, find or create the background music, record the video segments they needed, and finish editing, teams were hard at work throughout the process. 

According to eighth-grade teacher Ms. Scalera, the purpose of the Roem project is “to combine the musicality of rap and the elements of poetry with the new verse novels that have been released recently.'' In this way, the project was created to help students enjoy poetry and aid in the discovery of their hobbies, such as music or filmmaking. The project also teaches many essential skills, such as “ how to cooperate and meet a deadline,... understand what they read, [and] transform it into something new and creative,” Ms. Scalera stated.

Around the first week of January, students gathered in the Little Theater to watch the videos they had spent weeks preparing. Ms. Scalera noted that her “favorite part of the project was to watch students start from nothing and create a poem that is sophisticated and includes many elements that will be useful later on. My other favorite part … is the day when we watch the videos and revel in the final product.”

Perhaps the most important skill the project teaches is to be unafraid of performing for others. The Roem project brings students together as they work with each other, making new friends as they giggle and bond over poetry and video clips.