Eloquence

Rationale

The rationale for creating a unit on Spoken Word can be easily gleaned from its definition—performance-based poetry. As a mechanism for self-advocacy, Spoken Word poetry combines the careful selection and arrangement of words with calculated oral delivery of an individualized truth. In education, individualized instruction is often touted as the means by which to access and maximize each student's potential, but this is often hyperbolic. What many school systems slate as 'individualized' is merely exchanged for a nearest-size fit. It accounts for only a dominant culture; not everyone, not every child, not every need. Horace Mann, in the 12th Annual Report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1848, said, "Education, thus, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery...It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor." ⁴ This rhetoric illuminates an ideology that education is to encourage equity. But as America celebrates its 238 ^th year of independence, how close have public school systems come to realizing Mann's ideal? Not close enough. And enough is enough. Students feel left out. These Insurgent Listeners wait to hear for their invitation in. ⁵ Only when students learn to speak eloquently about what they think and actually need will Mann's philosophy be realized.

While I was sharing the prospectus for this unit, Erin Breault, a high school History and Psychology teacher and teammate, posed this question, "How will you help students to find their way in?" An ideal way of letting students in is for educators to show and build reverence for each student's culture, including the historical and emergent vernacular, validating a student's turns of phrase and dialect. The study of Spoken Word can help to achieve this goal. Only when students can see that these speaking patterns have merit will we free the cog, thereby improving the social machine. Though 'business language' is often the favored teaching mechanism in education, pedagogy points at beginning always with what students know. Many famous poets have employed dueling languages. Imbedded in our curriculum are Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Langston Hughes, who both often evoked truth by melodically referencing the masks that Insurgent Listeners must wear—and both purposefully alternated between flawless 'white' English or broken-but-estimable 'black' English. Elizabeth Alexander, Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of American and African American Studies at Yale University, made direct remarks about the validity of approaching work this way, "To people forging a literary tradition against the historical backdrop of withheld literacy and legal semipersonhood, questions of how black writers and other culture workers construct our literary heritage are relevant indeed." ⁶ This made me wonder: How can I serve this need and still support the curriculum?

As I struggled to figure that out, I ventured off to view Maya Lin's commemorative infinity pool, "Women's Table"—a swirl of numbers etched in black stone, each aligning to Yale University's admission of women—fat zeroes until 1968. ⁷ The sun's heat blistered my knees as I strained to snap a photo of my birth year—a necessary struggle to get close enough to see it. That strain seemed like a calculated arrangement, a physical reminder of how hard it was to gain access to education and how much work one must do to continue to overcome such barriers. Of her design-inspiring research she said, "I came across a phrase that actually sent chills down my spine. Women were allowed to sit in on classes in the 1800s, and they were called "silent listeners."" ⁸ Silent Listeners. The phrase illuminated an idea I had come across that referred to slaves' desires to be literate, deeming them Insurgent Listeners. ⁹ This correlation sent chills down my spine. How many students have I had who felt as if my words and teaching did not let them in?

Guided by my questions, I began to hash out this unit as I sat on a splintered park bench, half its spindles gone. Though I did not bear a sign that said, "Leave me alone," or "Closed for repairs," my choice of seating had spoken to those around me. All that we do impacts those around us. Our words are as important as our image and movements. I switched seats. That is when I chose to combine Spoken Word and rhetorical tropes and theory—seated together they include everyone. As Paolo Freire, an educational reformist who focused on education as the key to social change, said:

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. ¹⁰

Teaching Spoken Word in conjunction with rhetorical tropes can incorporate both informal and formal language, becoming a way in for students. It helps students internalize the concept of 'code switching'. It helps them build powerful text by accessing their personal truths in their own voices, thus establishing ethos, or credibility, making oral delivery authentic, moving them from Insurgent Listeners to Word Warriors. It entices students to care about what they write. Spoken Word lets them in and elements of rhetoric add the collegiate-level of thought that can change how students view their own abilities, giving them the tools to someday fix the social machine.