Indigenized Slam Poetry

The artifact we wish to share comes from our Origin Stories unit. We chose to do an origin stories unit as a spin off of the Memoirs unit other grade 8 classes at our school run.  We have been doing lots of work with students about the importance of where they come from and their ancestry.  As part of the lead up into our slam poetry, we felt it was important for students to first understand where they come from. Beginning this unit, students read one of our local origin stories (Saanich Flood Story) as well as several memoirs of Indigenous peoples from the book Island Kids by Tara Saracuse.  Students then worked on elements of story with the end goal of writing their own Origin Story. Students began by answering 8 of the Questions for a Memoirist document. We created an origin stories planning sheet where students could reflect on their origin story.  Here is a students example . As well, students were provided a origin story plot diagram  f...

Kelly and I sat down to talk about the way in which we would assess the final project, or slam poem.  While discussing, we had a great discussion about what it was we wanted students to get out of participating in our project. We realized quickly we would need three separate rubrics; one for the poem itself, one for the presentation , and one for the video component. When discussing the poem itself, we discussed that we wanted students to be assessed on how well they convey their Call to Action in their poem.  We created a hand out that will hopefully help scaffold the students through the process of writing a slam poem.  We included words we wanted the students to use, poetic devices, their personal connection to the call to action as well as how the call aids in reconciliation.  Students will be asked to add a personal connection to the call to action they focus on. The presentation rubric will involve tone, clarity, volume, eye contact, etc.  We decided t...

Over the past two weeks we have had two knowledge keepers into our classes to teach about the importance of the drum and drumming in indigenous culture.  Last week we welcomed Brother Rick Peter of Cowichan Nation to our school to teach about the importance of the drum.  Brother Rick is also part of our Elder in Residence program at two schools in our school district. Much of what he taught was about the respect for the drum. His teachings included the knowledge that at one point, everything the drum is made of, was living.  He teaches this to help students understand the respect needed for the drum. With Brother Rick, the students participated in singing the Hych'ka song as well as Happy Birthday. Next, we welcomed Alana Johnson, Haida Nation, to come participate in drumming in our classes.  We thought it was best to give students two different styles and different learning opportunities for drumming as they will be using drumming in their final project. Alana wor...

Finally, we have finished the worldview assignment with students.  The assignment took far longer than we anticipated given the technology problems we had.  We will only share the first page of students worldview assignments due to the personal nature of the other pages. The students did an overview mind map (seen here) then went into further detail on the pages that followed. Moving forward we have begun our Origin Story unit where we hope to use iMovie Trailer to have the students accompany the Origin story they will write.

It is interesting that this months topic is on Technology as Kelly and I were surprised to discover that the technology piece is what seems to be causing our delays. The students are just finishing up their worldview mind maps using Canva .  This website allows students to create mind maps (as well as other documents).  One issue we are having with this website is that you cannot change the size of the canvas so students are having to do more than one canvas as they have typed so much!! The other app we have been using lots is Sketchbook.  Students have drawn a rough copy of their Coast Salish inspired art on paper, taken a picture on the iPads and then they are able to add a layer over their picture, trace their image and then delete the photo, leaving behind their drawing. Most students preferred to draw on paper before drawing on the ipad and we found they were often trying to replicate exactly what they did on paper, so tracing was great. One key to success here i...

Kelly and I had the opportunity to go see Shane Koyczan live this past Tuesday.  Shane is a powerful spoken word poet who is part of the inspiration for our synergy project.  Going to see his performance brought forward a few questions about the logistics of our own poetry slam we plan to hold as the community share out of our project.  With 60 students participating in our project, one of the main things we need to accommodate is the sheer amount of time it would take for students to present their poetry in front of an audience. One thought is to not have all students present, however, we feel presenting to an authentic audience is a key factor in our project that we are not wanting to give up.  Another proposed solution would be to have the students write their poetry in pairs.  With such a big project (the poem and the video) perhaps students could present together or one student could present while the other works on the video so both students would have own...

At this point in our project, students are moving along with their worldview mind maps. Students have brainstormed the things that influence their lives the most. They are choosing five of those influences to put in their mind maps. Each of the influences have to have a visual that goes along with them. As mentioned in our last meeting, one of those images needs to have Coast Salish influences. We hit a bit of a snag with the technology.  Students are using the ipads to create their Coast Salish visuals.  We also wanted them to complete their mind maps online.  We found a website that we wanted to use, however, the website does not have the ability to save and then re visit the mind map.  We had to come up with a creative solution.  The students were to draw up a rough copy or a plan before they are allowed to go onto the computer.  This way, we could ensure that students would not lose work. We took it one step further and asked students to type up ...