Students Empowered by Poetry

Every student has a voice and needs it to be heard and valued, this can be achieved when students express themselves through writing poetry. To me this makes so much sense because poetry reminds me of music which is filled with self-expression.  Kwame Alexander is a believer in empowering student's through the use of poetry.

American author, Kwame Alexander writes poetry and children's fiction that are infectious for all students through his poetic writing style. I first discovered him when I purchased his book The Crossover (side-note: student borrowed & never returned) which received the 2015 Newbery Medal. As a fan of basketball and the rhythm in which he told the story I was an instant fan. For those of you who have seen Love and Basketball it brought back all the memories I had when watching that movie for the first time.

Fortunately for me, he was the keynote speaker at a workshop provided by my school district!

I was immersed into the "Kwame" world from the moment he began to speak on stage to a room full of educators who all had various opinions on poetry. Randomly yet so perfectly he would begin to recite poetry through his speaking. He sparked my love for rhythm and had me wanting to go to my local library to pick up poetry books that I had't thought about since I was forced to read them in high school.  He was a captivating speaker who said so many things that hit home with me, as how to access students and hook them into writing through poetry.

1. If the teacher is excited about it so will the students,
2. Start with poetry you really enjoy,
3. It is not intimidating to reluctant readers,
4. Connects to the human spirit,
5. Provides students a voice=empowerment.

In the breakout session he showed teachers grade 5th-12th a way to start poetry in our classrooms.

1. Living chart with students input on what is poetry.

2. Write a shared poem: pick a topic, list words around that topic on a chart, then ask students to go deeper with the words that they are listing, and then select words to write the class Haiku.
--One tip I really liked as he was writing our shared poem was, he told us not to give the topic away in the lines...instead allude to it.

3. Students repeat the process with a topic they enjoy.

I am more eager this year to make poetry a priority in my classroom as a way for students to begin to appreciate it as well as get empowered through writing their own. Without a doubt Kwame is a powerful presenter and there was no way to not be engaged and that is my plan with my students.