This assignment would best work with high school seniors.
I feel like spoken word can sometimes be more intimate (for me, as a speaker), because not only do you have to write it, but it has to be performed/spoken aloud. It's hard for me (as an educator) to put limits/suggestions/prompts about what a spoken word piece should contain... although, I understand that sometimes, this needs to happen.
To the class (of seniors):
We will be writing and performing our own poetry for incoming freshman. When I was a senior in high school, there were many things I wish I would have learned/been told in the previous three years. There were lessons, many unwritten, that needed to be taught. (i.e. freshman grades count just as much as your senior grades.... if you want to go to college, and have a lot of options, you need to get good grades from the start).
Other lessons would have been nice too... i.e. take gym class during the summer, where it's only 3 weeks long, you don't have to shower with anyone, and you can use the time (in high school) that you would have been in gym class for a different elective).
The idea behind our spoken word pieces, is to educate our incoming freshman. Tell them what you have learned, or what you wish you would have learned or known when you started out. You could write your piece in a way of "I have learned", or "If I could go back in time, I would....", etc.
We will be performing our pieces next week, to an incoming freshman class. Be prepared to answer questions from students and teachers. You are in a very powerful position here, hopefully helping to make new students feel more comfortable, in addition to giving them an inside look of what the high school experience can be like. Remember, you don't have to hold anything back... but you certainly can if you want. Just think of what you would have like to have known on your first day of high school.
Asha -
ReplyDeleteI like this assignment - the aspect of mentoring is particularly nice. I wonder if you've ever checked out the "This I Believe" materials available online. It seems like this assignment could be augmented by some of the specific stuff that they discuss there, though I understand the hesitation to make the requirements too specific.
I also wondered about having students perform the pieces on camera. I run a TV studio at Simley High School, and have equipment available, but I know that most schools have cameras and labs for student use. That way the videos could be compiled online and saved as a kind of expanding archive year to year. Imagine going back 20 years after doing this assignment regularly as a way to document the ways education is static and the way it changes.
If you ever want to do a video project at school I recommend schooltube.com - it's a teacher moderated user-created content video site that most schools don't block. The embed option, while a little fragile right now, has worked pretty well for my TV class so far.