Arts Electives: Poetry Slam - by Laryssa

For one of the Art Electives this year, we did a Poetry Slam with Shauna. She's really good at poetry, and we had one of her former students come in. Her name is Hannah. There were mostly girls, and only three boys! Since Electives was on the same day as Pajama Day, we were all in our pajamas except the few people who decided not to celebrate pajama day.

How we did our Poetry Slam, was everyone thought up a word and then wrote it on a piece of paper and we put it in a bin then we passed it around the circle and then we each took out a piece of paper. Surprisingly, I picked the same word that I put in the box, "sheep". I chose sheep because I was thinking of sheep a lot that day because my pajamas were covered in sheep. If you're wondering, those things covering my pajamas are not clouds!

We each got a minute to write anything we wanted on our poem, then Shauna would ring a bell and we'd pass it to the person on my left. The person on my left was Hannah, the person on my right, who I got the poem from, was Clara. I chose to sit there.

At the end, when we were really running out of time, we could stand up and read the poem we were currently holding. I was holding a poem called, "People". Clara is really shy and she decided not to read hers. We had to stop halfway, at Shauna, so Shauna did not get to perform "Sheep". I have a very good memory. I was very mad we had to stop there cause I wanted to hear what my poem ended up as.

At the end of the Elective, Bella and her friend volunteered to type up all the poems and email them to Shauan. After the winter holidays, everyone who was in the elective got a copy of the book. The cover was a Wordle of all the names of the people who were in the Poetry Slam and the word "Poetry Slam". We also got to keep four for the class because we had extras!

My favourite poem is "Sheep". It's not just because it was my poem, it's mostly because I like how the words went together and the ideas changed and it's still smooth!

-this post is by Laryssa, the absolutely awesome!

The End.

Shauna's Learning - Poetry Slam

 As my current students know, I taught at Fielding Drive Public School for many years. The last class that I taught there before I came to Churchill was an incredible grade 8 class that got very involved in the Slam Poetry scene in Ottawa. Some of those students have remained very active writers and performers. I was lucky enough to go see a former student, Haneen, who goes by the name "Freedom Writer", Slam last week. She has developed her style in amazing ways and I was so proud to see her!

I took a short video of another Slam Poet, "Cease Fire". I didn't catch the beginning of his poem, but it was remarkably related to many things that we have been discussing in class. See if you can hear any lines that have to do with something we have spoken about in Room 209.

Haneen's sister, Salma, is in Megan Wark's grade 5 class at Fielding! She is one of our "Fielding Friends" this year. She is buddied up with Molly and Vickie and I sat with her and the rest of Haneen's family at the Slam!