During the last week and a half of practicum, my students handed in all their final projects I had assigned. First, they completed a class-wide poetry zine that included 2 poems from each student. The theme of the poetry unit was social justice and each student chose a theme they wanted to write about for the zine. At the beginning of each poetry lesson I would share a video of a spoken-word poem relating to the social justice theme for that day. I would then use that poem to teach one or two poetic devices each lesson. The students really enjoyed the spoken word poetry and I was impressed with how engaged they were with such complex and difficult subject matters. We had many thought-provoking and meaningful class discussions about gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, environmental issues, bullying and mental health.

They especially liked listening to Macklemore’s two songs about facing drug addiction and finding sobriety, Otherside and Starting Over, as well as Shane Koyczan’s “To This Day” which is beautifully animated and evokes strong emotional responses.