Lesson Plan 3

Lesson Plan

Rationale:

Poetry can be used as a powerful tool for social justice. It allows authors and audiences to discuss, explore and think about major issues facing our world including racism, sexism, war, poverty. Spoken word poetry is a powerful way of expressing these issues.

Students will discuss example of spoken word poetry and then asked to write and perform their own versions.

In class we will discuss what makes a successful spoken word poem, what hinders poetry etc.

Students will then be given video cameras and asked to record their poem.

Spoken Word Poem

* Audio File to Come Soon *

Owe Him, Right?

"Please baby," he begs me.
His breath hot and wet against my throat.
His chin unshaven,
rough, leaving my skin red and screaming.
His hand insistent at my hip,
the other groping at my tits.
and I let me.

Because I owe him, right?
I owe him for his heart, kindness and might.
His mind and sensitivity
owe him for his help and generosity.

So I lay back, shutting my eyes and closing my lips.
His fingertips probe beneath my belt
cold, fast and impersonal
like getting me off is just a step to skip
another box to check off his to do list.

His lips smother mine, bottling up any protest that lay dormant there.
and I let him.
Because I owe him, right?

I owe him for dinner last night.
Because thirty dollars at the Olive Garden is enough for my silent subservience
Owe him for the dishes and the laundry
for his inconvenience.

So I let me.

He climbs on top of me and his once sweat
sweat fills my nostrils like vinegar
burning my nose and tongue.
His beautiful brown eyes closed tight against me
and I bite my lip until the taste of copper and salt fill my mouth.
Because I owe him, right?

I owe him for loving me.
Because a girl like me doesn't deserve a man like him.
Smart, sexy and successful.
I'm so lucky.
So I let my body sink into the mattress, forgetting about the twelve hours I put in that day
the books to read, the papers to grade
I forget about being tired or sad
or the shitty day that I had.

I ignore that I hate my ears, my arms and my ass –
because it is my job to let him smack at that.
I owe him, right?
So I silence my mind and its desperate pleas
and I turn around and get down on my knees
and pray to the God that he is and
be happy that I get to fuck him.

I owe him for never raising a hand or clenching a fist
like my father so often did
Yet I can't help thinking with every kiss of his lips
or stroke of his dick
he is leaving scars deeper than my father ever did
For he is crueler that dad ever was
shutting me up with a kiss and a plea
because I owe him for loving me.

This piece of spoken word poetry has a lot going for it. The young woman chose an appropriate subject matter for this genre of poetry - powerful, personal and meaningful. She has a very strong beginning, her word choice, rhythm, and language are all very strong. I particularly like her use of 15, "fifteen years it took me to learn a little about myself fifteen seconds it took you to look me up and down and judge me." She uses some very powerful images as well, specific and evocative. SOme of her more powerful images include, for me, brother dead in his bed and her mother's drug addiction. The strongest line in this poetry, in my opinion, is, "these scars on my arms are from their bladed tongues." I think that it is a beautiful use of figurative language - I think it is powerful and evocative. Most importantly I think that it is unique. Sh also uses repetition in a powerful way.

This poem is a bit scattered. I understand the desire to put everything on paper but I think the poem may have been more powerful if she had focused on only a few incidents and expanded on those. I think that her delivery was very strong at the beginning but seemed to become more and more rushed. Some of her lines could have been stronger if she had used pausing more effectively. I think that her rhyme scheme is a bit predictable, and a little pedestrian. I also think that she relied a bit too much on cliched phrases - "one minute in my shoes" "pain bottled up" "cry yourself to sleep" "shadow of fear."

Overall this young woman has a beautiful voice, and I admire her courageousness.

Lesson Plan II

Materials:

Several selections of poetry that display rigid meter
Bongos


This lesson is aimed at teaching students how to recognize meter in poetry. It gives students a concrete way of hearing the beat – and allows those that are kinetically/musically intelligent to practice those abilities.
Students will be asked to identify the meter in a selection of poetry. They will be asked to draw it out with the typical stressed/unstressed symbols. They will then be given a set of bongos to play it out to ensure they have gotten it correct.

A lesson in Haikus and Hike-Us

Children’s chalk red, blue
Rain falls down fast washing the
Colors, shapes away

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Between two sidewalks
green sprouts up strong, alive in
the concrete waste land

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His lips, velvet covered granite, silence my weak excuses quickly.

The soft clean scent of him remains even after long days have gone by.

His copper fleck’d gaze burns as I sit across the bar missing his kiss.

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His breath smelled sour, sweet, like pine, like childhood camps and Christmas fires.

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I snap her scratching pencil, ahh, now I can finally read in peace.

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License and registration please the handsome officer asks me now.

Lesson Plan

Sense Poetry Unit

Rationale:
Good writing begins with good observations. This lesson focuses on challenging students to observe something extraordinary in the everyday.


Activities:
In this lesson I will challenge students to not only see something but to smell, feel, taste and hear it. I will bring in a variety of everyday items such as tennis balls, snow globes, milk etc. and ask students to write what they observe.

Students will asked to write everything they can for each of their five senses.

They will then do a free write to think about childhood memories that involved that item.

They will then practice writing the childhood memory poem.

Prose Poem

I really should call more, but when the phone rings and the caller i.d. reads, “mom” I silence its shrill voice and return to the dishes. The water leaves my hands an angry red but I don’t remove them, instead I turn the hot water back on rising the temperature further. I’ll call her back tomorrow, I tell myself.