On a November morning, the line to ask a question of MacArthur “Genius” writer Hanif Abdurraqib stretched almost to the back of the Great Hall in Coffman Union. Nearly 900 high school students from across the Twin Cities listened attentively to his answers, sometimes penning notes in their copies of Abdurraqib’s nonfiction collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.
Later, the essayist and poet met with the students in smaller groups and signed a book for their classrooms. On buses back to school, students told their teachers that hearing the author read made the text come alive. And: how much they would love to sit down and talk with Abdurraqib about pretty much anything.
This is the College in the Schools (CIS) Field Day, an annual opportunity for area high school students to engage with an internationally known literary author, sponsored by Mike and Julie Kaplan through the Walter Nathan Literary Initiatives. “The generosity of the Kaplans,” said English Professor Katherine Scheil, coordinator of the College in the Schools Literature program, “has allowed us to bring high school students together with a major writer on the University campus for a celebration of the power of literature.”
Each year, CIS Literature and Creative Writing runs a poetry contest sponsored by the Walter Nathan Literary Initiatives, with a Twin Cities poet as judge: any student in a CIS Literature class can enter.
On Field Day, the three winners bravely read their poems at the lectern before the writer took the stage. This year’s winners hailed from Hastings High School, White Bear Lake Area High School, and Farmington High School. The students were loudly cheered by their peers, joining the author in the moment as celebrated writers.
“I realize I should've known this already,” one student admitted, “but seeing that the author was a real person made me feel like I can be a real writer, too.”
And a real college student. For a day, the high schoolers are not just receiving college credit, they’re walking around the U as college students. They’re envisioning themselves enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts, taking notes in an English class, writing a poem for a Creative Writing course. We hear it from the students each year: the experience feels like a gift, like care, like freedom.
Excerpts from “Bringing Literature to Life: Twin Cities high school students meet a celebrated writer through the College in the Schools Literature Program,” published December 16, 2025. Read the entire story on the UMN Department of English website.
