Oh StumbleUpon... how you distract me from homework so easily. I never would have thought while stumbling, I would come upon an idea worth blogging about. Somehow everything has come full circle.
Anyway, as I was stumbling, I came across this video about Sarah Kay:
It's about an 18 minute video where Sarah Kay starts off with a spoken word poem. She is a founder of a program called Project V.O.I.C.E.
Basically, it is a program about promoting spoken word poetry. According to the website, "Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression) is a national movement that celebrates and inspires youth self-expression through Spoken Word Poetry. Conceived in 2004, Project V.O.I.C.E. encourages young people to engage with the world around them and use Spoken Word Poetry as an instrument through which they can explore and better understand their culture, their society, and ultimately themselves. Project V.O.I.C.E. brings together performance, writing, and a supportive environment to inspire youth to recognize that their views are significant, valid, and necessary."
I think that this would be a really good way to start off a unit about poetry and to show this video to students. The people behind this Project V.O.I.C.E also travel around the country putting on workshops for students and also educating teachers on how to tackle spoken word poetry in the classroom.
Also, If you wanted to look them up on Facebook, you can do so here.
I love this! I think this would be great for multiple classes: Creative Writing, Speech, or just an poetry unit is an English class. This is such a great idea. If you check out my blog, there is now a post of my favorite spoken word poem!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! I listened to several of the poems and some of them are totally fantastic. I especially liked "Why Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog". I think this is a great thing to use in a poetry unit because there is something for everybody. Forcing students to study only one form of poetry, or literature for that matter, is such a waste. There is so much out there for everybody and Spoken Word Poetry really shows that.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea. Kids often cringe at the thought of poetry, but this might change their mind. Using that Def Jam poetry when it is more like rapping with no music might be interesting, too.
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