“I Think We Can Use Our Words to Change the World”: Poetry as a Tool of Social Analysis in a Class of Nondominant Fifth-Grade Students

• In Event: Overcoming the Silence Through Spoken Word

Abstract

Objectives
The objective of this paper is to discuss the relationship between the pedagogical practices I utilized in an educational intervention designed to develop the tools of poetry writing and literary analysis with non-dominant 5th grade students, and the ways students took up these tools to critically reflect on their lived experiences in a working class, immigrant community. Drawing on Anzaldúa’s (1999) image of the borderlands as both a physical location and a visceral experience, this paper describes the unique intersections, or “borderlands” of pedagogy and art that emerged in the Writing Out Loud Project. Using interpretive micro-ethnographic analyses of classroom interactions, this paper 1) Highlights the pedagogical creativity involved in training students to step into the poet’s identity and 2) Explores how these pedagogical strategies assisted students in using poetry as a tool of social analysis.

Theoretical Frameworks
In an era of standardized curriculum and reductionist approaches to teaching and assessment, this paper returns to the fundamental question: “What is the value of writing, particularly poetry writing, in our society”? Grounded in the theoretical insights of Chicana feminist epistemology (Anzaldúa, 1999; Anzaldúa, 1998; Castillo, 1994; Moraga, 1993), the work of Paulo Freire (2005, 1970) and Vygotskian approaches to learning and development (Chaiklin, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978) I argue that the reflective, metaphorical nature of poetry writing is instrumental to facilitating a complex epistemological awareness of one’s identity and experiences in the world. The poet’s central task, to abstract reality through symbols, is both deeply intellectual and emotional work (Vendler, 2004; Steele, 2000). In this setting, poetry writing was defined as a tool for both making sense of one’s thoughts and feelings, and developing an analysis of social issues such poverty and immigration. As students used their imaginations to experiment with language, they were introduced to radical possibilities—the world as it could be. For young non-dominant students who typically experience little exposure to formal arts education, this is particularly significant (Darling-Hammond, 2007; 2004).

Data Sources
In the Writing Out Loud Project I worked with students both as the instructor and as an expert poet, structuring lessons and activities to mediate the various tasks of poetry writing. Using analysis of audio-video recordings and samples of student work collected over a six-month period, I present a close look at classroom discourse to identify the characteristics of the learning environment in this project and the distinctive pedagogical practices that engendered its development.

Significance
This research shows the degree to which many students in the project used poetry writing to take up their everyday experiences as objects of analysis and began, through metaphorical language, to explore the nuances of their nature and origins. This kind of epistemological work facilitates a deeper level of knowing and understanding that has the potential to mold one’s future actions in the world, including how one approaches encounters with reading and writing (Freire, 2005). In detailing the kinds of pedagogical choices that supported students’ development as poets, this paper aims to offer new insights for language arts curriculum and instruction.

Author

• Denise Pacheco, University of California - Los Angeles