Memo 1 [Basketball and the Poetry Academy]

My initial research drove me to a few dead ends. As much as I find JSTOR to be a valuable source for finding relevant articles and information, it has its share of clutter and unrelated articles. There were plenty of articles surrounding poetry and English in classrooms, but nothing that I was actually interested in. Sometimes, many of the articles that the search claimed discussed poetry never mentioned poetry at all! I found a few that may be a little off tangent from my initial topic but I certainly could apply. 

One article I found was an essay written by Douglas Baker titled “English Language Arts, Basketball, and Poetry Collide”. The title was certainly something that gained my interest, and linked into one of my questions pertaining how teachers could link poetry to other subjects and topics that many students would find relevant. While the article mostly focuses on how basketball and poetry worked in accordance with his teaching strategies, and not necessarily how they linked to the students, it was a starting point. He claimed that the different environments were all like different communities, “each with its own discourse and ‘literate’ practices, or common knowledge that students…constructed with me and learned in order to participate within the particular group.”

Baker was able to ascertain differences and similarities between the poetry club and the basketball team that related to his classroom. “For example,” he writes, “basketball players developed incrementally and were not formally assessed as a team…using that knowledge as a metaphor for assessing students as readers and writers in the classroom, I developed expectations…that encouraged…slower changes necessary to achieve particular goals”. 

If I could find some acceptable data to support my reasoning, that poetry alone can have similar goals in a classroom, much as Baker discovered, I will be able to push this snowball downhill. For now, this is a steep struggle to find applicable data and sort out through the clutter. 

I did find another article, though it revolved around elementary education and not secondary education. Still, it was closer to my topic than the previous one. In Lori G. Wilfong’s article “Building Word Fluency, Word-recognition Ability, and Confidence in Struggling Readers: The Poetry Academy”, Wilfong noticed that many of her students (about half) were significantly below their reading levels. She founded/created an intervention at the school she worked at known as the Poetry Academy, similar to another intervention known as “Fast Start”. She got the idea from the fifth Harry Potter book. 

A brief paragraph in her article describes how the program works.

The student would take the poem home and read it aloud to as many people as possible, gathering sig natures from listeners to verify the reading. The following week's session would start with the student reading the poem one more time to the volunteer to demonstrate mastery of the poem. The volunteer would then introduce another poem, and the cycle would repeat. Figure 1 demonstrates the Poetry Academy cycle.

I felt this article would act as a nice transition into my ultimate question “How can song writing, poetry, and/or spoken word be used in a classroom?” Before conducting any research, I actually developed an idea similar to this, explaining how teachers could use poetry to explain essential reading and writing strategies since most poetry is short sweet and simple. I could use this article to back up my initial thoughts and tie them into further research. I may want to look up more information about this Poetry Academy. 

As I continue my research, I find more and more voices about the uses of poetry and finding that there are many who do use poetry, more than I initially realized. I am curious to explore further.

I want to share this video with you

I had the privilege of viewing this video during a couple of education conferences. Also, in one of my courses, a peer used this video as part of her project and I found it creative, powerful, and rich; I am always impressed by this gentleman's language. It is this creativity that also helped me determine my I-Search topic.

Attempting to Narrow it Down

Although I have completed an I-Search for another class in the past, I always seem to think too broadly about a topic. There are so many questions that need answers and I struggle to focus on just one.  

After careful consideration, I decided to follow along with my third choice, “How can I incorporate song writing, spoken word, or poetry into my classroom while still meeting the curriculum? How will these meet the needs of my students: personally and academically?” What would be acceptable uses of poetry and spoken word that would meet with the curriculum? Why are some teachers able to effectively transition from poetry to reading while others skip over it? From what I have seen in a classroom, as well as what other students and teachers have explained, the school curriculum tends to limit what teachers can or cannot do in a classroom. It makes me wonder, if this is the reason why so many teachers just do not bother with poetry in the classroom until the end of the year, where they have to rush through it.

It always bothered me that so many of my teachers jumped over poetry, as it was one of my favorite topics in school. I can only remember one time, in my secondary schooling, where a teacher used a lot of time and energy into making a month’s worth of assignments from poetry and song lyrics. We studied poetry from the old south, which led into our reading of The Bluest Eye. Although that novel was not a favorite of mine, I remember it better than most of the other novels we read in class because we spent such a considerable amount of time on Southern poetry. It was also a wonderful link to the American history class I was taking at the time.

If one teacher was able to do this, why do other teachers struggle to fit it within their classroom curriculum? Is it really the fault of the district, or is it that teachers just cannot find reasonable uses of poetry and, therefore, do not bother?

For my I-Search, I want to find teachers who were able to incorporate poetry effectively into their classroom. If they were successful, what was the topic and how did they incorporate it into the lesson? Could teachers incorporate poetry into any lesson really, or is there a specific format that creates the “good transition” I praised my twelfth grade English teacher for?

 

I-Search Topic Idea (3)

A.      How can I incorporate song writing, spoken word, or poetry into my classroom while still meeting the curriculum? How will these meet the needs of my students: personally and academically?

·         To find information about this topic, I would look up some spoken word on YouTube and see what students have already made. Many classes allow students to put their work on YouTube, and some students do that on their own. Seeing student generated work is only a starting point, however; I would need to ask and find teachers who have already learned to implement this in their classrooms and how it has affected their students. Do students find this more enjoyable? It is easier? Too easy?  

I think this could be applicable to a 400-level course. Our goal as teachers is to not only provide good education, but to also provide a safe working environment and one that exceeds the needs for our students. Some students excel at poetry writing or lyric writing and never have a chance to openly use it. Others, however, have never actually had a chance to explore these fields of writing. It would be interesting to combine both and see the results.

Some areas I could focus my research on includes the standards that could accompany the use of poetry in classrooms or how to incorporate poetry and lyric writing into narrative writing. Perhaps even, some essays could be accompanied or written in a poetic manner. What are teacher opinions about this?

I think the do-ability will be both challenging and obtainable within the time period given. There have been teachers who have successfully used poetry and spoken word in their classrooms, and there is evidence of successful student work even on YouTube if one looks hard enough.

I really do care about a topic like this. I want to find answers about it. The reason I did not include it as one of my top two choices is because I felt it may be too easy or too repetitive. However, I really want to include as much poetry in my classroom as possible, in all shapes in forms, especially since SO many teachers like to brush it off at the end of the year, just to say they covered it. Why do teachers do this? Maybe this is something I can look into when and if I work on this as my I-Search.

I-Search Topic Idea (2)

Can students use each other as sources? Could this help students learn to properly cite their work?

·         I think that something like this would be a great way for students to not only learn how to properly cite their work, but to also learn from each other. It would give students an opportunity to see how much their writing could be worth, even to someone else. This could build confidence, and allow them opportunities to see the ideas and thoughts that their classmates have that they normally do not share in class. I would have to see if other teachers have done this and, if not, what they think about it. 

[x]

The reason that I think students using one another as sources could become a meaningful I-Search, is because it serves two purposes, should it be successful. One, students can learn how to properly cite sources: each other. Teachers claim they spend so much time explaining MLA format over and over again, and so, consistently reference Owl Purdue so as to avoid repeating themselves and show a valuable tool at the same time. However, once these students are in college, they have no clue how to cite their 15 page assignment in proper APA or MLA format because the site consistently changes or they are out of practice. Citing one another could be a great way to practice proper citation.

More importantly, number two, students can see how one another write. This could become a great opportunity for students to collaborate on ideas, see examples of other writing processes, and, as Linda S. Flower likes to emphasize, see if the writer is actually writing for their reader: is it in “reader-based prose”?

This may be a little harder to do in comparison with my other I-Search ideas. This one will involve more digging with secondary sources. Maybe, I may find nothing fitting the exact criteria I am searching for. I would have to do a “preliminary search” to see what I find before interviewing teachers and students of the like. I am more curious, however, about how students would feel about learning from one another in this manner. Teachers already use peer editing in their classrooms, so what is to stop them from using student assignments as sources? Be it peer editing or allowing students to gain insight from one another, both serve as a useful learning tool.

Some topics I could research, on the site of this topic, include some fears about plagiarism or students “missing the point”. As said, this may be more tedious than some other topics in terms of finding solid information. However, it will also keep me fairly busy in terms of finding relevant information as well as finding new ways for students to work collaboratively.