On November 29 at the Jarrettsville Creamery, all three Creative Writing class members got the chance to flex their speaking skills by reading or singing original pieces at Misentity Live.

English and Creative Writing teachers Mrs. Joanna Dallam and Ms. Christine Allred put together Misentity Live in order to help support the end-of-the-year publication of the school’s literary magazine, Misentity.

As Dallam puts it, “I want them [students] to own the process as well as the final product. I think that forming Live is a pretty big commitment, a pretty big investment and takes a lot of bravery. Not everyone is willing to do it but those who do it, even the ones who are scared and overcome that fear and do it, have a much greater stake in that final process and final product.”

Sophomore Samuel Sgambelluri attended the fundraiser and “got to perform live music of my own – I did a few rap songs of mine – which I thought was really awesome.”

Sgambelluri found the experience “was actually pretty rewarding. I was a little bit nervous at first especially at the start but…as it went on it got a little easier for me to perform live and not be so nervous.”

Another Creative Writing student junior Summer Renshaw performed her poem “If you’re anything like me.” She states, “It was just me as a person and what I struggle with and how I dealt with it all. It was personal so it was different for me to put myself out there and reveal a different part of me.”

Misentity Live also was open to North Harford High School students who aren’t a part of Creative Writing such as senior Alex Damian  who “Randomly heard about it from a friend. I loved the Misentity magazine, and I didn’t even know we [Creative Writing] did a Misentity Live, so I had to see people perform.”

Damian thought “It was amazing seeing other people do their thing. I loved Abby Vaughn’s short story, it was so beautifully written. I wasn’t even looking at her I was totally envisioning what she was saying.”

        Dallam also had high praise of students who presented like “Brianna Gorschboth [who] sang unaccompanied, three songs and the lyrics of those songs obviously really meant something to her.”

She continued, “That’s a side of her that you’re never going to see in class, that’s the real reason to do Misentity Live – beyond the finances and the worries of the publication – to see a side of students that there isn’t any opportunity during the school day to show.”