Poetry - Spoken Word - Compare With Song, Speech, Rap & Comedy, and Write Your Own - 2 whole lessons

Ignite an interest in poetry by teaching about spoken word poetry performance.

Four carefully selected Youtube videos of great poetry performances from Agard, McNish, Heron, and Zephaniah will appeal to even the most stony-hearted students. Add your own favourites!

Students then form their own concept of the poetic by comparing these poems to other forms of performance.

In Lesson Two, students rework a classic Def Jam Poetry performance by Linton Kwesi Johnson.

This is the first of two lessons on Spoken Word Poetry. To see the Writing lesson, click on my user name.

This lesson should be accessible and challenging for most students from Grade 5 up.

It is designed so you don't have to do any extra preparation. There is a pre-starter, starter, main activity, and plenary, and each step is open-ended enough to provide a challenge for the inquisitive. You can easily adapt it to make it your own.