Hip Hop Culture, Slam Poetry and the Development of a “Spoken Word Curriculum” Workshop
-Professor Bronwen L. Low, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University
This workshop focused on a Senior English course, developed by Prof Low, which is built upon student interest in rap music and freestyle oral poetry and culminated in a competitive mock-Olympic poetry slam.
Barbara Elliot: Poem "What I Learned"
What I learned
And all I am thinking
Is how I wish I coulda had a course like this
Or at least my kids coulda
Or that I had a culture
You see
That I could really connect to
Relate to, had a lingo for
Could express myself
Like the kids in the video
To feel like I belong
How could it be wrong?
To bring the brain alive
Click into overdrive
Make you think
What they call “critical thinking”
Which is the real kind
To exercise the mind
Like Coke is “the real thing”
Get into the groove, get up and move
Rap, Hip Hop, Slam
Spoken Word
Never get bored
How can it be wrong to connect to the youth
‘cuz they know the truth
With a language and way
of their own to stay
This curriculum allows juvenile voices
The option of choices
The young speak
And work to seek
Answers and solutions
Resolutions
To the problems we all face
In the human race
Thanks to Bronwen E. Low
And her presentation
HIP HOP CULTURE, SLAM POETRY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A “SPOKEN WORD” CURRICULUM
I know my direction
To make this connection
Happen.
Barbara Elliot is a teacher at Stanstead College
Barbara Elliot: Poem "What I Learned"
What I learned
And all I am thinking
Is how I wish I coulda had a course like this
Or at least my kids coulda
Or that I had a culture
You see
That I could really connect to
Relate to, had a lingo for
Could express myself
Like the kids in the video
To feel like I belong
How could it be wrong?
To bring the brain alive
Click into overdrive
Make you think
What they call “critical thinking”
Which is the real kind
To exercise the mind
Like Coke is “the real thing”
Get into the groove, get up and move
Rap, Hip Hop, Slam
Spoken Word
Never get bored
How can it be wrong to connect to the youth
‘cuz they know the truth
With a language and way
of their own to stay
This curriculum allows juvenile voices
The option of choices
The young speak
And work to seek
Answers and solutions
Resolutions
To the problems we all face
In the human race
Thanks to Bronwen E. Low
And her presentation
HIP HOP CULTURE, SLAM POETRY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A “SPOKEN WORD” CURRICULUM
I know my direction
To make this connection
Happen.
Barbara Elliot is a teacher at Stanstead College
