POETRY IN THE STREETS 1 Amanda Depew Poetry in the Streets Literacy Across the Curriculum Dr. Mahar POETRY IN THE STREETS 2 Poetry in the Streets There is no doubt that poetry is one of the most revered forms of art, and, unfortunately, one of the most ignored. Many students today do not want to face the tormenting language that poets use. Interestingly, they love songs and music in general, not knowing that many types of music are poetry in disguise. This project, therefore, seeks to help students in the community to start appreciating the need and benefits of poetry. It is aimed at giving them hope again about poetry and showing them that poetry is not an enemy as they have been made to believe. This project is in line with CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.10 (Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity: “By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently” ( Poetry in the Streets will involve organizing students in groups, writing and practicing our short poems, and taking some time to move around the neighborhood reciting them to crowds. While this may at first sound like an insane project, there is hope that it might work and pave the way for the improvement of literacy and poetry appreciation, both within the school and outside. The very first performances may be held within the school compound as some preparatory measure. This will ensure that the participating students can be given some time to develop the skills needed for the performances. Since the primary objective of this project is to enhance the ability of the students, and members of the audiences that they will be going to, to write short poetry in a manner that can improve their literacy and communication. One of the main reasons why this is highly POETRY IN THE STREETS 3 encouraged is that it has been determined that many students today complete school without the basic skills of creating or improvising songs or poems that they can apply in natural circumstances without struggling. In many communities, most of the older generations can compose short poetic lines that they sing as they work in various fields and occupations, such as while farming, rearing cattle, doing construction work, or in many other tasks. Interestingly, these are poems that carry some of the most real feelings and emotions of the people reciting or singing them. They have opinions about family matters, national problems, and international issues. It is quite common for similar types of short poems to be included in casual conversations or when trying to prove a point. Poetry has always been used in some cases where mediation is taking place to emphasize particular perspectives, or when trying to persuade the fighting sides to come to terms. Public expression in many communities around the world has always been done through such forms of poetry, but the death of oral traditions seems to have gone with most of these authentic forms of literature. Unfortunately, most of these creative ways in which people have always engaged in poetry and its aesthetics are slowly fading away, thanks to the rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions. New forms of media are washing away these orally passed forms of poetry and replacing them with over-edited visuals that in most cases may not contain any kind of creativity as far as literacy is concerned. Still worse in the fact that social media is taking over the world by storm, and very few forms of literature will survive in the future if no intervention is taken. Therefore, the proposed project will also seek to resuscitate the dying form of oral tradition through local poetry that is fused with local themes and content that people from within the community can relate to easily. The approach will mainly be participatory, implying that everyone will be part of the team composing the poems, only that we will divide the members POETRY IN THE STREETS 4 into smaller groups at first so we may improve coordination. While there is no evidence that such a project will be able to hold to the future, we will give it a try and hope that it reaches a point where we can look behind and say that we have made it. To make this project more about the community than the school, the idea of going outside and talking to members of the neighbor has been proposed. The primary target for this project is women, who were once known for their effective use of shot poetic songs to pass messages in their families and society in general. Women in the community have in the recent past been ignored despite the rising calls for gender equality. They are not ignored directly, but most of their cries are taken for granted because everyone now seems to assume that it is normal for women to complain about being mistreated in this highly patriarchal society. Therefore, we are hoping that by helping women revive the dying forms of oral tradition, we will have rekindled their fire of fighting for their rights through the use of methods that were once effective. The project mainly seeks to reach those women who do not have sufficient access to opportunities where they can access experiences as oral poetry performances. In this vein, once the students become proficient in the composition and recitation of these short poems, we will then start going around the immediate community reciting to men and women some of the poems, and asking them to join the group in the composition of the poems that will be recited during the next sessions. This will be an ongoing project, implying that we will never have enough poems, only that we will be refining those that may need some improvements. Some of the main themes that we want to incorporate into the poems include climate change, junk foods and health, physical exercise, and many others that we will discover along the way. To make it simpler for the students, we will create a calendar where each community visitation day will have a theme. This means that all poems that will be recited on that day will POETRY IN THE STREETS 5 cover the same issue. This will also make coordination during composing to be easier because students will be able to collect ideas from their friends in other groups to come up with the most exciting creations. We are also hoping that the other English teachers will chip and assist where possible because this is a project this will hopefully improve the literacy levels of every student who will benefit from it. Another objective of this project is to help the students gain some cultural enrichment as they interact with members of the neighboring communities. It is well known that learners who have a multifaceted understanding of culture tend to be brighter and more adaptive in class. As such, the poetry project will attempt to broaden their scope of understanding and to show them that there is a lot around them that they should appreciate. Further, students who do not have an English background will be allowed to bring in poems written in their first languages. This will also be quite interesting because we will analyze such poems and translate them into English, then recite both versions out in the community and compare them to see which appeals the most and why. Such experiments will yield more interesting outcomes, and most of the students will be motivated to bring their versions of poetry that they may have acquired from their mother languages. This will encourage cultural diversity, and therefore in addition to literacy proficiency, students will learn to appreciate the differences that people from diverse background have. On the whole, this project will seek to achieve many things at once. While it may seem to be overambitious, if we start it small and develop it gradually as we gain traction, there is hope that it will once be successful and many learners and members of the community will benefit from the initiative. Also, the teachers will benefit a lot because they will get to know the areas of weakness of the students and thus delve deeper to know how they can respond accordingly. At POETRY IN THE STREETS 6 the same time, it is a project that will encourage cultural diversity and tolerance. Many students who do not interact with people from different backgrounds outside the school setting may grow up with a very narrow understanding of cultural beliefs and values. We thus hope that this project will pave the way for the broadening of these perspectives and the general appreciation of the differences that human beings naturally have. POETRY IN THE STREETS 7 References Common Core State Standards Initiative (2019). English Language Arts Standards » Reading: Literature » Grade 9-10 | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2019). Corestandards.org. Retrieved 27 March 2019, from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/ POETRY IN THE STREETS 1 Poetry in the Streets POETRY IN THE STREETS 2 Poetry in the Streets There is no doubt that poetry is one of the most revered forms of art, and, unfortunately, one of the most ignored. Many students today do not want to face the tormenting language that poets use. Interestingly, they love songs and music in general, not knowing that many types of music are poetry in disguise. This project, therefore, seeks to help students in the community to start appreciating the need and benefits of poetry. It is aimed at giving them hope again about poetry and showing them that poetry is not an enemy as they have been made to believe. This project is in line with CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.10 (Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity: “By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently” ( Poetry in the Streets will involve organizing students in groups, writing and practicing our short poems, and taking some time to move around the neighborhood reciting them to crowds. While this may at first sound like an insane project, there is hope that it might work and pave the way for the improvement of literacy and poetry appreciation, both within the school and outside. The very first performances may be held within the school compound as some preparatory measure. This will ensure that the participating students can be given some time to develop the skills needed for the performances. Since the primary objective of this project is to enhance the ability of the students, and members of the audiences that they will be going to, to write short poetry in a manner that can improve their literacy and communication. One of the main reasons why this is highly POETRY IN THE STREETS 3 encouraged is that it has been determined that many students today complete school without the basic skills of creating or improvising songs or poems that they can apply in natural circumstances without struggling. In many communities, most of the older generations can compose short poetic lines that they sing as they work in various fields and occupations, such as while farming, rearing cattle, doing construction work, or in many other tasks. Interestingly, these are poems that carry some of the most real feelings and emotions of the people reciting or singing them. They have opinions about family matters, national problems, and international issues. It is quite common for similar types of short poems to be included in casual conversations or when trying to prove a point. Poetry has always been used in some cases where mediation is taking place to emphasize particular perspectives, or when trying to persuade the fighting sides to come to terms. Public expression in many communities around the world has always been done through such forms of poetry, but the death of oral traditions seems to have gone with most of these authentic forms of literature. Unfortunately, most of these creative ways in which people have always engaged in poetry and its aesthetics are slowly fading away, thanks to the rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions. New forms of media are washing away these orally passed forms of poetry and replacing them with over-edited visuals that in most cases may not contain any kind of creativity as far as literacy is concerned. Still worse in the fact that social media is taking over the world by storm, and very few forms of literature will survive in the future if no intervention is taken. Therefore, the proposed project will also seek to resuscitate the dying form of oral tradition through local poetry that is fused with local themes and content that people from within the community can relate to easily. The approach will mainly be participatory, implying that everyone will be part of the team composing the poems, only that we will divide the members POETRY IN THE STREETS 4 into smaller groups at first so we may improve coordination. While there is no evidence that such a project will be able to hold to the future, we will give it a try and hope that it reaches a point where we can look behind and say that we have made it. To make this project more about the community than the school, the idea of going outside and talking to members of the neighbor has been proposed. The primary target for this project is women, who were once known for their effective use of shot poetic songs to pass messages in their families and society in general. Women in the community have in the recent past been ignored despite the rising calls for gender equality. They are not ignored directly, but most of their cries are taken for granted because everyone now seems to assume that it is normal for women to complain about being mistreated in this highly patriarchal society. Therefore, we are hoping that by helping women revive the dying forms of oral tradition, we will have rekindled their fire of fighting for their rights through the use of methods that were once effective. The project mainly seeks to reach those women who do not have sufficient access to opportunities where they can access experiences as oral poetry performances. In this vein, once the students become proficient in the composition and recitation of these short poems, we will then start going around the immediate community reciting to men and women some of the poems, and asking them to join the group in the composition of the poems that will be recited during the next sessions. This will be an ongoing project, implying that we will never have enough poems, only that we will be refining those that may need some improvements. Some of the main themes that we want to incorporate into the poems include climate change, junk foods and health, physical exercise, and many others that we will discover along the way. To make it simpler for the students, we will create a calendar where each community visitation day will have a theme. This means that all poems that will be recited on that day will POETRY IN THE STREETS 5 cover the same issue. This will also make coordination during composing to be easier because students will be able to collect ideas from their friends in other groups to come up with the most exciting creations. We are also hoping that the other English teachers will chip and assist where possible because this is a project this will hopefully improve the literacy levels of every student who will benefit from it. Another objective of this project is to help the students gain some cultural enrichment as they interact with members of the neighboring communities. It is well known that learners who have a multifaceted understanding of culture tend to be brighter and more adaptive in class. As such, the poetry project will attempt to broaden their scope of understanding and to show them that there is a lot around them that they should appreciate. Further, students who do not have an English background will be allowed to bring in poems written in their first languages. This will also be quite interesting because we will analyze such poems and translate them into English, then recite both versions out in the community and compare them to see which appeals the most and why. Such experiments will yield more interesting outcomes, and most of the students will be motivated to bring their versions of poetry that they may have acquired from their mother languages. This will encourage cultural diversity, and therefore in addition to literacy proficiency, students will learn to appreciate the differences that people from diverse background have. On the whole, this project will seek to achieve many things at once. While it may seem to be overambitious, if we start it small and develop it gradually as we gain traction, there is hope that it will once be successful and many learners and members of the community will benefit from the initiative. Also, the teachers will benefit a lot because they will get to know the areas of weakness of the students and thus delve deeper to know how they can respond accordingly. At POETRY IN THE STREETS 6 the same time, it is a project that will encourage cultural diversity and tolerance. Many students who do not interact with people from different backgrounds outside the school setting may grow up with a very narrow understanding of cultural beliefs and values. We thus hope that this project will pave the way for the broadening of these perspectives and the general appreciation of the differences that human beings naturally have. POETRY IN THE STREETS 7 References Common Core State Standards Initiative (2019). English Language Arts Standards » Reading: Literature » Grade 9-10 | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2019). Corestandards.org. Retrieved 27 March 2019, from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/ Comments from the Professor: I do not think this is an insane project at all. You will need to allow time for students to work on the poems. Yu also will need to make sure the places they travel are approved by the school district- or whatever organization may sponsor this- as well as by parents/guardians. Finally, you will need to make sure that the group is well chaperoned. I'm looking forward to reading the finished project. Final Assignment Spend time thinking about a community service literacy project that you could design. Imagine that you would be applying for a grant for this project. The project should include aspects of community, family, and/or school involvement. The project should also be mindful of the diverse needs, cultures and gender of your students. • • • • You will write a four to five page paper due in module seven describing your project. You can use drawings, photos, or any other artifacts to augment your plan. Your idea should encompass the full force of your imagination. If you could imagine an innovative, yet useful plan for increasing literacy in your content area, what would it be? Where do you see a need for literacy activities in your school community or neighborhood? Note to M.Ed and MAAL students: • • How can you design this project to enhance your final project? What can you come up with that would be feasible, creative, useful, and benefit the children you work with? For further information see websites: • • Idealist Service Learning A recent call for teacher's grant opportunities in Connecticut (ctreading.org) was phrased this way: • • • • Do you promote literacy? Does your teaching directly influence your student's learning? Are you using current theory? How do you evaluate your students' learning? Note: The above grant opportunity was offering each teacher applicant $500.00 The above questions give an idea of what a grant giving organization might look for. Public school teachers apply for grants to enhance their students' learning all over this country. The Barbara Bush Foundation gives grants of $60,000 to promote student literacy. The International Literacy Association's website is rich with information on literacy and literacy grants. In our case, and for the purposes of this course, we are looking for funding ideas that would promote literacy and include either the family, the community, or the wider world. Please tie your proposal to your specific content area. Gather your thoughts, look at the web resources listed above, and come up with an innovative literacy activity that might be funded by state, local or private agencies. Note: Some grantors look for funding ideas that promote cross-cultural, cross-socio-economic status (SES) learning activities. One way to accomplish this might be to design a literacy activity that is inter-district in nature. Can you think about how this might play out, or of any other ideas that bridge gaps between communities where you work?
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