“Getting Loud!” Performance Poetry in the Highschool Classroom

Nichole S. Schroeder♦
Dr. Rebecca Dierking, Dr. Summer Pennell, and Dr. James D'Agostino, Faculty Mentors

Spoken word poetry has played an essential role in cultures around the world, due to its ability to connect people, teach lessons, and provide catharsis. In many modern classrooms, students are not provided opportunities to explore spoken word mediums, yet research indicates that extracurricular poetry performance groups can help students engage with poetry, build empathy, develop multimodal literacy, and manage difficult emotions. This case study explores the potentials of integrating slam poetry into a ninth grade honors English classroom. Through grounded theory analysis, the study explores the impact of spoken word poetry on student listening skills and student self-expression over the course of a semester, using the lenses of student, teacher, and researcher response. This study offers alternatives to traditional poetry instruction methods, and expands discourse surrounding the use of spoken performance in the classroom. 

Keywords: Slam poetry , English education, Spoken word , High school , Performance poetry

Topic(s):English, Secondary MAE Research
English MAE Intern

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA

♦ Indicates Truman Graduate Student