Slam Poetry

Ever since my early undergrad years (perhaps having something to do with the fact that many of my friends were poets) I have taken great pleasure in listening to spoken-word performances. What always blew me away was not so muchwhat the poet said as how they said it. Sure, the content by itself would have been fascinating enough to read. However, for me, would rendered spoken word its unique quality was its power (without a single prop) to give new meaning and life to words, solely conveyed by a poet's voice, tone, facial expression and body language.

In spite of this personal interest in spoken-word, it wasn’t until our in class session this semester that I realized the wonderful potential of slam poetry as an in-class activity. Prior to teacher`s college, I had never heard of Taylor Mali. As a former teacher of English who is currently well known as a poet of slam poetry, he has certainly inspired me to incorporate the practice of slam poetry into the English classroom. With its "dual emphasis on writing and performance" slam poetry is a great way to encourage students to focus on "what they`re saying and how they`re saying it” (http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/voice/voice069.shtml).

It gets students thinking about how non-verbal elements and delivery of content is equally as important as content. One of the advantages to this is that it can serve as a nice segue into a unit on Shakespeare or any other play, because it gets students comfortable with (an excited about) reading script aloud as it is meant to be read. As mentioned during our session, the oral communication strand of the English curriculum is one that often does not receive enough emphasis but that easily can through activities such as this one.

It would also be a great idea to do slam poetry earlier on in a given course, as it can also serve as a great means to break the ice. As Brenda Dyck put it, slam poetry can bring students to a "kinder, gentler place -- a place where we were free to share our innermost thoughts". Because they are given the opportunity to voice their own joys, concerns and opinions, students (contrary to what one might think) tend to take this kind of activity very seriously.

Here are a few interesting links that can be used as teacher resources if anyone is interested in incorporating slam poetry into the classroom.

Winnepeg Poetry Slam:
http://www.wpgpoetryslam.com/for-teachers.html

Used with an intermediate class:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/voice/voice069.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/voice/voice069.shtml

Government of Canada: Language Portal
http://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/manchettes-headlines/claquement-slam-eng.html