Collective+Poetry+(ESL)

Collective Poetry Over the past two weeks, in concert with my MT, I have been teaching a class of ESL students. Inspired by our guest speaker, Dwayne Morgan, I decided to give student written poetry a try. The class is ESL Public Speaking, so the culminating activity had to be a spoken performance. We decided that collective poetry would be the best route to take. The performances took place this afternoon, and it was a great success. We distributed a whole pile of newspapers and magazines, and told the students to rip out any words they liked, or were attracted to for any reason. This went on for some time. Next we had each student circulate and find the one word they had cut out that was most important to them, and hold on to it. We then had every student read his or her word aloud. Based on their word choice we grouped them based (loosely) on theme. The themes were; violence, consumerism, Rogers cable (for some reason), and crime. To make a long story short, the next few classes were devoted to assembling collective poems based on the thematic groupings. Students could go back to the previously cut-out words, or they could find new ones. When the group was happy with their words, they had to arrange them into a free form poem. The final step was to get them to collectively perform their poem. Although the first steps were a lot like pulling teeth, they eventually relaxed and got into it. . They had to incorporate every group member, echo, volume changes, pitch changes, word emphasis, and a few other creative choices. Both my MT and I were pleased with the results. While some students still trembled standing before the class, and hid behind the tall students, many others embraced the exercise fully. We were surprised to see some very shy students find freedom in speaking their poems aloud. I know what you’re thinking! “But, what about the curriculum!?”: 1.2: write short texts to express ideas and feelings on personal topics using a wide variety of forms. 4.1 activate prior knowledge through peer and group interaction; organize ideas using graphic organizers suited to the structure of the piece of writing. 2.1 engage in complex spoken interactions on a wide variety of topics. 3.2 use appropriately a wide variety of pronunciation, stress, rhythm, and intonation patterns of spoken English to communicate meaning. Ontario Curriculum: English as a Second Language and English Literacy Development. Pgs, 108-115 Submitted by Luke Gilgan