This week I gave my students the opportunity to post their competition slam poem and a reflection about the experience for their classmates to read and respond to. I asked them to think about their writing process, their performance, and what it was like to be in the audience. By far, the comments were positive, and here's one that expresses some of what I hoped the students would get out of it all:
Personally I'm not a huge fan of writing poetry at all, but I like slam poetry a little better then regular poetry. The reason I like writing slam poetry better is because I know that I will be performing it for people, so if it can mean more then one thing then my actions will explain it. Performing was kind of fun when it was in the classroom, because I knew that it was only a practice round and that everyone there would be fine with what I do because they were just as scared as I am. That gave me more confidence so I could go on. But when I was performing in the auditorium I did not have that confidence because I knew that not everyone was performing like I was, but still I got up there and did what I needed to do. When I was in the audience I loved watching other people get up there and read some of the most funny poems ever.
Not everyone was quite so affirmative about the slam, though. Here is what the most discontented of my students had to say:
I didn't like writing all the poems. It just wasn't fun and we wrote about nonsense. It also sucked even more because it was boring to listen to all the poems for a couple hours. Not only was there only one good poem, the other ones just plain sucked. I would have rather done school work. Plus I wasn't near anyone cool to talk to in the audience. I think that it was a waste of time.
I don't take what he says personally, but I do take it seriously. I hate to shrug off any student criticism, because I haven't given up on the notion that it's possible to engage all of my students most, if not all, of the time. Obviously, I didn't quite reach him, and I'll keep his perspective in mind next time as I plan.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of writing poetry at all, but I like slam poetry a little better then regular poetry. The reason I like writing slam poetry better is because I know that I will be performing it for people, so if it can mean more then one thing then my actions will explain it. Performing was kind of fun when it was in the classroom, because I knew that it was only a practice round and that everyone there would be fine with what I do because they were just as scared as I am. That gave me more confidence so I could go on. But when I was performing in the auditorium I did not have that confidence because I knew that not everyone was performing like I was, but still I got up there and did what I needed to do. When I was in the audience I loved watching other people get up there and read some of the most funny poems ever.
Not everyone was quite so affirmative about the slam, though. Here is what the most discontented of my students had to say:
I didn't like writing all the poems. It just wasn't fun and we wrote about nonsense. It also sucked even more because it was boring to listen to all the poems for a couple hours. Not only was there only one good poem, the other ones just plain sucked. I would have rather done school work. Plus I wasn't near anyone cool to talk to in the audience. I think that it was a waste of time.
I don't take what he says personally, but I do take it seriously. I hate to shrug off any student criticism, because I haven't given up on the notion that it's possible to engage all of my students most, if not all, of the time. Obviously, I didn't quite reach him, and I'll keep his perspective in mind next time as I plan.
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