Rationale
Approaching this unit in the classroom will allow students to participate in reading aloud published poetry as well as creating poetic literature that expresses personal affirmations of triumph, encouragement, rage, hope, and most undoubtedly love in every aspect of student life. Students are not always given the opportunity to say what they like or even allowed creative expression in this realm of education. Students are asked only to satisfy state assessments and other exams. This unit is being developed to allow students creative choice for writing in between the pressures of testing for proficiency. This unit will enhance students' levels of interaction with language, words, and comprehension in an analytical way because it will force them to become more precise in usage of specific terms to convey written and verbal messages.
Students do not always say what they really mean. For the most part, their response to a wide range of emotions on a continuum exists at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum either fierce anger or loving kindness. I want my students to be able to write, to use their voice, both their inner voice as well as their oral sounds, to tell their story poetically — truthfully. My students need to know that their voices serve them as an individual and as a participant in a community. Each one is linked to another no matter where their lives began. In thinking this way, I have considered the cultural diversity that exists in my classroom. Students are from the neighborhood, and from African countries like Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Botswana; still other students are from various Caribbean Islands like Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. My students bring various levels of life's ever-changing experiences with them when they sit in the classroom each day, from personal triumphs and tragedy to trauma and tenacious strength.
Poetry: the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative or elevated thoughts.2 Students will be taught to appreciate the sense of sound as found in poetry both modern and archaic, both the European variety and the African styles of poetry which show an intermingling of language and dialect. Students must be able to decipher meaning within sound, dialectic use, and metrical patterns that have lasted throughout the generations.
Various characteristics of poetry will be examined: listening and experiencing the meaning of words expressed; language in speaking the words with precision and purpose —orality; poetry terms that will enhance the development of student poets and enable literary criticism; assemblage of voice for choral poetic class exercise and school assembly performances. With the advent of slam poetry, the words are quickly rolling from the mouths of poets; students have to listen for main ideas and themes without having an opportunity to read any of the words on paper. Students will have to rise to the sophistication of listening to the recitation of poetry for metric patterns, themes, ideas, rhyme and word choice. Students will also develop their own skills of performance and public self-expression..
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