Vocal Performance and Digital Media
There is newness in the experience for African-American young people living in the digital age of technology. Teachers in the School District of Philadelphia and almost certainly in other cities and districts have to contend daily with iPods, MP3 players, cellular phones, and digital cameras more in their classrooms and in their school's public spaces. In this unit, students will be able to use these devices to archive their story and the stories within their community through use of spoken word poetry and speeches that will ask their audience to take action for a stated reason and purpose. This strategy is discussed further in Lesson Plan 3 of this unit.
Students must be able to conceptualize and vocalize voice — ferociously intense, extracting the most visceral truths, exploding each syllable with attention to detail in yielding clear conviction of purpose. The human voice used in several digital media must be practiced for word pronunciation for mouth capabilities (rising, falling, trembling, reaching, and spinning), and in increasing students' potential for oratory growth and vocal awareness. For this reason, students will do a short warm-up exercise. Have students record in their journals or a notebook: "The tip of the tongue, the roof of the mouth, the lips and the teeth." Have them practice repeating this phrase repeatedly until they can clearly and concisely say it at a rapid pace without error.
Vocal sound is a personal icon and if carefully honed and sculpted, voice can make use of a spectrum of tones. Inner voice, as if taken from a secret world, forms within the physical body and then reverberates into the world around it. As noted in the section, Orality of Africa, students will notice the creation and recreation of images through the use of their voices giving control over their personal sound with meaning. Using techniques of enunciation, inflection and understanding of printed text will give students practice and training in oration and voice. This strategy can be used as an after-school activity called an Orator's Group, highlighting the call for students to become great public speakers. 19
When we consider the vocal performance of the typically prolific and emotionally charged African-American minister, meaning is above all conveyed by tone. This is witnessed in the influence the speaker has over his or her audience and the interwoven antiphonal conversation that occurs during the process of the performance. Students will have to determine how and why the call and response vocal performance regulates the leaders' social messages. Malcolm X's "Ballot or the Bullet," Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream," Mohammed Ali's poetic decrees against his opponents, and Barbara Jordan's 1976 "Keynote Address to Democratic National Convention" and her 1974 "Statement on the Articles of Impeachment" use many of the speaking strategies studied in the call and response. They will also compare this phenomenon in political speeches of African-American audience in listening to Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech. Surely there will be opportunity to chronicle Obama's vernacular choices and audience as the campaign process progresses through the 2008 Presidential Election process.
Other African-American speakers will be compared and contrasted in regard to vocal performance too. Students will consider a series of questions before being exposed to the video and/or audio bytes. The questions considered will be: How important is it that members of the same speech community actually speak alike? How important is it that member of the same speech community share similar attitudes to each other's speech? To what extent do Americans/ Islanders actually speak alike? Is it important to not speak in dialect to an audience? When is dialect speaking appropriate? How and when is Standard English used in speeches performed by African-Americans? How can they be combined? Other speakers that will be heard in class will be those African-Americans and Islanders who according to the media "represent" their racial communities in general. Students will also determine what factors are brought forth in order to be a representative of that particular group.
Nonverbal Dialogue
When groups are viewing speeches, they will have to consider some of the physical language that a speaker shows as a part of the informing development within the oral process. Facial expressions, postural cues, physical stance and hand gestures are a rich source of social information. Animated and nonverbally active speakers are known to be more positively viewed by an audience in the African-American community. Furthermore, the physical presentation of the speaker is considered a part of dialogue. A person's appearance factors into the sounds that come from the speaker's mouth, as well as considering what Frost notes as the "sound of sense". This sense sound is like hearing voices behind a door that cuts off the words but the listener knows what has been said upon seeing the people thereafter.
Furthermore, students will have to begin to recognize and distinguish different messages for the varied cultural backgrounds that may be represented in the classroom. These nonverbal language experiences will be an excellent discussion to supplement dialogue about body language and more.
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