Using Spoken Word Poetry to Develop Personal and Social Core Competencies

I used to despise poetry. 

Examining rhyme scheme (ABCB) and hunting for poetic devices in a poem written before I was born by a poet I had never heard of? I didn't understand why I had to do this? How was it relevant?

Well... it wasn't. Not at that time in my life anyways. Nowadays I'm eager to search out poetry that I might read on my own time, that I might study or at least annotate to appreciate the language's beauty. Back then though, if it wasn't particularly relevant and if it was particularly challenging, I wasn't going to enjoy it. 

Now I teach English to middle schoolers, and part of the curriculum is poetry - and to my greatest surprise it has become my absolute favourite unit, my "baby." My love for this unit is so well-known that when I told my students that next year I would be in the library instead of the classroom, one of the first reactions I got was "but does that mean you don't get to teach poetry?" I am already advocating hard amongst the literacy teachers at my school to let me lead teach or co-teach poetry for them next year, because I am passionate about the success I have with it. I recently presented
my unit to my staff at our last meeting as a pitch to let me work with them next year, and I'm hopeful that I sparked interest amongst a few of them!

Why Poetry Is My Favourite Unit

Like I said, I never would have expected poetry to become my favourite unit to teach, but I think the reason it is is twofold. First of all, I was absolutely thrilled to discover spoken word poetry a few years ago, and to realize its potential in my classroom in place of poems that are meant to just be read or poetry writing units; secondly, I get a thrill from completely changing my students' minds. When I initially told my students that we were going to be studying poetry next I got visceral reactions (if there's one thing middle-schoolers do well, it's dramatics!). I assured them that I too used to hate it, but I was going to make them love it this year. 

Well, I didn't quite convince all of them, but I did win the majority of them to my side, so much so that many of them claimed it was the one unit they'd miss most when they moved on to a new teacher next year. 

"Looking to the Future"

When I was preparing to present to my staff about my poetry unit, I was contemplating how it could be adapted. Because I love the unit so much, I go for the long-haul and make it a 6-8 week unit, but not every teacher will want to do that. Many of the spoken word poems that I showed my class touch on heavy topics like racism, alcoholism, homophobia and transphobia; as a final assessment in my unit this year I had asked students to choose a poem from class and complete a poem analysis of it. While they were completing their analyses I realized that many of the students weren't able to dive as deep as they could have because they didn't have some of the background knowledge necessary for their poem. For instance, in the poem "Pass" by the poet Black Chakra which highlights the systemic racism of the NFL Chakra preaches 

"Hell, if it's a million dollar deal, they want Emmitt Smith but treat you like Emmett Till."

While this line was incredibly impactful to me the first time I heard it, my students didn't have the background knowledge of who Emmett Till was to fully comprehend the depth of Chakra's words. 

This made me consider the possibility that a final assessment could be an inquiry project that would ask students to look into the references made in a poem of their choosing. Given the topics of the poems I share with my students, deep dives into their content would align with the development of social responsibility. This led me to my inspiration for my digital artifact for the LIBE 477B Vision of the Future project.

Spoken Word Poetry for BC Classrooms

The last two years when I've taught my poetry unit I have spent time preparing by watching numerous spoken word poems online. While I would get some suggestions from my Teachergram community, I would search for others on my own. Many I would watch only to realize that a segment of the poem would be inappropriate for my students; other times I would be searching for poems to fit a certain topic. I knew that if I wanted my colleagues to take my lead with my poetry unit next year, I would need to make the selection of poems more accessible to them -  with that in mind, I decided to create a resource website. 

I teach in a middle school with students from grade 6 to 8. Initially when creating this resource I planned to have a page categorizing poems by grade level, and by topic. Some of the poems that I share with my 8th-grade students have mature content and/or language that 6th-graders may not be ready for, so I thought it would be helpful to categorize them that way. 

I soon realized though that this was not the best avenue - students and classes vary so widely in terms of maturity levels that a stranger such as myself would not be the best judge of what is appropriate for each grade level. Instead, I decided to take a closer look at the Personal and Social Core Competency of the British Columbia Curriculum website. Admittedly, I hadn't looked at this particular section of the curriculum website too closely in the past, but I quickly realized that this would be the optimal way to categorize my poetry selections. 

I looked at the three facets of the Personal and Social Core Competency (Personal Awareness and Responsibility; Positive Personal & Cultural Identity; and Social Awareness and Responsibility) and discovered that each of them is broken down further into three or four subcategories. I created a spreadsheet to keep track of my thoughts, and began to categorize each poem into each smaller subcategory. In doing this, I began to identify where the gaps were in my collection, and sought out new poems that would be useful in schools and that would connect to the core competencies. 

I also categorized my poem selections via topic, as I know that many teachers (myself included) often gear their units around particular topics or essential questions, and having a resource of poems available via topic would likely be helpful. 

Hopeful Implications

My goal in creating this resource website is to make teaching poetry, or at least exploring poetry with students a more engaging and passion-igniting experience for all. In their introductory chapter, Miller & Bass state "Leadership is about influence and creating conditions for success. It's about recognizing the opportunities that abound in school libraries and making the most of them to bring about changes that will empower and support your students as learners" (30). My hope is that by sharing this digital resource with my school colleagues I will further gain their confidence and their willingness to follow my lead with this poetry unit next year; barring that, I would hope that teachers may consider supplementing their current units or lessons with relevant poetry collections that have already been curated for them. Teachers are incredibly busy people, with never-ending to-do lists, so making a challenging unit easier on them is something I hope to do. 

As for the students, I sincerely believe that showing them the possibilities of poetry through spoken word and slam performances can really open their eyes to a new form of expression and that it can even empower them to use their voices in new ways. I experienced this first hand with students in 2021 who began to explore writing poetry as a means of creativity and expression of their experiences. A study by Coppola, Woodard, and Vaughan echoes my experience. In an examination of a spoken word poetry unit focused on writing in a middle school the authors found that "poetry writing and performance provided students ... with a medium and stage to elevate their powerful stories and perspectives" (242) and that in particular, three students' "compositions poignantly challenged stereotypes of dis/ability" (243). 

In adhering to the BC Curriculum's Core Competencies, we want to foster learning in students that will encourage them to be critical thinkers who aim to make a difference in the world; if we want them to make a difference, then giving them opportunities to use their voices in an impactful way is critical. In an essay she wrote arguing that spoken word should be added to the curriculum in urban schools in New Jersey, Spoken Word artist Mia Fiore states that spoken word poetry "may be in a unique position to facilitate unprecedented social change by providing students with a platform from which to

question and negotiate the conditions of their lives" (814). 

Fiore later argues that "encouraging students to write about their feelings and experiences in the form of a poem acknowledges that they have something to say and that it is important, while showing that poetry does not belong to an elite, inaccessible world" (822). This above all is the reason that I am so passionate about sharing the possibilities of spoken word with my students and colleagues. Even starting off with just an appreciation for the medium allows students to experience just how profoundly their voices can be used to make a difference. If I could take this passion and help create a school or a generation of strong advocates through the use of poetry, my duty will certainly be complete.

Works Cited

Chakra, Black. “Black Chakra - ‘Pass’ @WANPOETRY (TGS 2018).” YouTube, uploaded by Write About Now, 5 Nov. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnkLBKgySkQ.

Coppola, Rick, et al. “And the Students Shall Lead Us: Putting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in Conversation With Universal Design for Learning in a Middle-School Spoken Word Poetry Unit.” Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, vol. 68, no. 1, 2019, pp. 226–49. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336919870219.

Government of British Columbia. “Core Competencies | Building Student Success - B.C. Curriculum.” BC’s Curriculum, curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies. Accessed 21 June 2022.

Miller, Shannon McClintock, and William Bass. Leading from the Library: Help Your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age. 1st ed., Kobo ed., Portland, Oregon, International Society for Technology in Education, 2019.