The History of Spoken Word Poetry
Objectives and Goals
- Evaluate how spoken word poetry is affected by historical and cultural perspectives
Essential Question(s)
- What impact does history have on literature?
- How does literature shape or reflect culture?
Lesson Format
This lesson is designed to take approximately 2 - 3 days/120-180 minutes and can be completed entirely online. This lesson includes open-ended questions, discussion opportunities, summarizing, analysis of multiple texts, and the composition of a creative final product to demonstrate your understanding.
Procedure
- First, respond to a couple of questions after watching a spoken word poetry video.
- Next, watch several spoken word poetry videos and use a note catcher to record your thoughts. Then, choose one interesting point from your note catcher and one question you have about the videos and add those to the discussion board.
- After you have viewed the spoken word poetry videos, read a short history of spoken word poetry and add your thoughts to a discussion post.
- Next, choose one of the spoken word poems from earlier in the lesson or one of your personal favorites and analyze the poet’s influences and perspective.
- Finally, choose and explain a color, a symbol, and an image to represent your understanding of spoken word poetry and how it is influenced historically, culturally, and socially.