Note: The videos included in this post contain language which may be sensitive to viewers.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, poetry is one of my greatest guilty pleasures. After seeing my first live performance, a concert headlined by Bradley Hathaway, I was hooked.
As I enter my internship in the Fall, I find myself reflecting on which subjects and areas I am most comfortable with and which I have not had a considerable amount of experience teaching. One of the subject that I have had not had the chance to teach in any of my previous field experiences is English Language Arts. During my internship, I hope to have the opportunity to teach a unit involving poetry to expand the students’ views on what poetry might be.
Many people view poetry as nothing but fluffy love notes, but I feel there is so much more to the spoken word. One of the most notable examples would be Shane Koyczan‘s To This Day. To This Day is a chilling personal account of Koyczan’s history and views on bullying. As of the writing of this post, the original animated video for the poem has been viewed over 9 million times. Koyczan was also featured as a keynote speaker at the TED Conference:
After reading a post by my good friend, Jayde McFee, I can see the in-classroom application that poetry can have. When she presented To This Day to her Grade 8 class, a very emotional conversation followed. Being able to approach sensitive issues, such as bullying, through spoken word allows for the message to be delivered in a powerful way.
Another poem about bullying which is a personal favourite of mine is by Panama Soweto, which I presented to my class earlier this year. It is a riveting poem which identifies with how it feels to be the kid at the back of class who is always picked on.
I look forward to having experiences like this within my own classroom in the future.
Matt Giesbrecht's E-Portfolio 
Thanks for sharing these resources, Matt. I LOVE slam poetry and I think our students will, too. I am excited to try slam poetry out in the fall with my grade 10s. Hopefully you get some experience teaching ELA!
It’s great to hear that someone else enjoys it, as well. I’m always looking performers to listen to.
Thanks for sharing such interesting resources. I have never heard about slam poetry but after watching your post I am excited to use in my future class.
If you use iTunes, I suggest subscribing to this: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/indiefeed-performance-poetry/id120373332
THanks a lot!!!!!!
[…] this is what I do to deal with my bad days. Shane Koyczan, who I posted about previously, has a poem named Instructions for a Bad Day. For me, listening to this poem is a perfect release […]
[…] three-week block, I plan on completing a poetry unit with my students. As I have explained in many previous posts, poetry is one of my greatest passions. Being able to convey a story on an extremely intimate and […]