The Speaker's Voice
Voice will be an integral part of this unit. The speaker's voice in poetry must be understood if the poem is to be understood. For example, when the student reads a poem, he or she should not assume that the writer of the poetry is also the speaker. In many poems, the speaker is someone else. The teacher can assist students with this task by providing rich poetry to students and allowing the students to unravel the poems to identify the speaker. Students in my classroom will study and analyze the chosen pieces to determine the speaker's voice in the poetry. After practicing this skill, it is my hope that students will inadvertently come to learn that they have a voice in their own in their writing. Why is this so important? When students develop a voice in writing, that speaker's voice transcends their writing and also demonstrates their unique understanding of the topic. How many times have you given your students a paper to write and what they have written is bland or faceless? All of the elements you ask for are there in terms of content, but you don't want to read the paper because the student's voice is missing? This is not uncommon with middle school writers. In many instances, the student concentrates so hard on the assigned task, believing that writing can be done to formula, that they lose their voice. Writing and interpreting poetry will give students the opportunity to put a voice back to their writing.
Middle school students often read a poem and believe that the person writing the poem is also the speaker; however the author often invents a voice to speak through. One method we will use to dispel the myth that the writer is always the speaker is to look at the historical context in which the poem is written. One goal of this project therefore, is to provide an avenue for students to analyze poetry by determining who the speaker of the poem is, what vocabulary is used and why, and what the speaker is like. We will look at the background of the writer to determine whether the author is indeed the speaker and the time frame and context with which the poem was written.
Using poetry will offer an excellent opportunity for the teacher and the students to break down cultural barriers and allow students to have a voice in the classroom at Redan Middle School. We will examine how students can relate to modern and not so modern poetry in terms of who they are as [readers] and interpreters of the poem. What is the background and history of the author of the poetry? Are there similarities or differences in how the student reader views himself or herself to the self-conception of the speaker in the poem? Can the student increase his or her literary and informational text comprehension skills by analyzing a variety of genres of poetry? Additionally, how can the student use his or her own culture and diversity to create poetry for others to read and interpret?
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