Unit 7
Magazine Article on poetry slams by Rachel Shapiro
Nonfiction to Connect with “400 – Meter Free Style” and “Bodybuilders’ Contest”
Article Found @ http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/upfront/issue/articles/1poetry.html
Examples of student poetry slams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isLtc5lFgf8 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8eym-7jeo0
Common Core Standards: RI.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development, including how it emerges and is shaped and defined by details.
RI. 4 Determine the connotative meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text.
Introduction: In the last two poems, you read about athletic competitions. The article you will read next is about a very different type of competition – a poetry slam.
Simply put, poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry. It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they're saying and how they're saying it. Poets (and their poetry) are judged by members of the audience. Typically, the host or another organizer selects the judges, who are instructed to give numerical scores (on a zero to 10 or one to 10 scale) based on the poets' content and performance. You can also view a poetry slam at the links above or by checking out the link below about a new show on HBO called “Brave
New Voices.” http://youthspeaks.org/bravenewvoices/ & http://youthspeaks.org/bravenewvoices/blog/

Standards Focus: Synthesizing Sources
Magazine articles often include sidebars – news items or short features added near the main text. When you read a magazine article that has a sidebar, you need to synthesize the information from both article and its sidebar. By putting together the facts, ideas, and details from each, you’ll get a fuller understanding of the topic.
How do you do that? What do you read first? Do you interrupt your reading of one piece to read the other? Here’s how you can synthesize the ideas and details from “The Night Poetry Rocked the House” and the accompanying sidebar, “Not Your Father’s Poetry.”
 Skim both the main article and the sidebar to get a basic idea of what each is about and how each is organized.
 Read the main article from start to finish; then summarize its central ideas and details.
 Note any questions you have after reading the main article.
 Read the sidebar. As you read, ask yourself: What am I learning here that I did not learn from the main article?
After reading the sidebar, consider why the information in it was provided separately from the main article. The answers you come up with may help you recognize the focus and strengths of the main article. For more help synthesizing the article and sidebar that follow, create and complete a graphic organizer like the one started for your below.
1.
“The Night Poetry Rocked the
House”
Source
Graphic Organizer
Main ideas and Information
Rachel Shapiro’s last performance in the
National Youth Poetry Slam in San
Fransisco is fantastic
Questions and New Information
What exactly is a poetry slam?
Close Read
The Night Poetry Rocked the House

Magazine Article by Rachel Shapiro
We may not have won the national poetry slam – but that wasn’t the point.
We were brimming and overflowing with excitement. We had made it to the finals of the National Youth Poetry Slam in San Francisco, where more than 100 of the top teenage poets from across the country gathered to perform. It was 1 a.m., the last performance of the third and final round, and my team, representing New York City, was about to go on, ending the entire weekend of inspiring words.
Onome, Casey, and I planned to perform a group piece that the three of us had written about women. A girl thinks rich, thorough thoughts . . . Why doesn't she speak up in class?
We knew we would have points deducted because our piece was well over the three-minute limit. But it didn't matter. We had something to say. We had a message to leave with San Francisco.
Eloquent Words
The three of us walked out on the stage gazing at the chandeliers and the 1,200 faces who cheered, who came to hear the voices of the young poets of the country. We performed on a stage blessed with the eloquent words of skinny girls with proud, deep voices, 13-year-olds who roused the entire crowd, round women from Atlanta who sang amid their poetry; it was a stage ridden with confusion, rebirth, inspiration, talent, and pride.
Close Read
Analyze Visuals: Based on the body language of the poets in this picture, what can in you infer about a poetry slam?
Synthesize: What do the title and the highlighted statement hint the main idea of the article will be?
Common Core RI. 4
Language Coach
Denotation/Connotation

Many words that night had shocked us with their brilliance. Now it was our turn. Does she learn to dismiss her anger when/ he says he's sick of male-bashing poems/ did she dump him when he bashed her?
We had an open stage, a free forum to share the plight of the young girl who doesn't speak up in class -- never realize she was brilliant -- to speak of the silencing and submission of women -- Was she always this numb?
Was she always this quiet?
-- the abuse, the sellouts, and the lack of respect -- Did her tears fall like raindrops/ outside a soundproof window?
The words poured out with emotion and house-rocking force. We traded solos like a jazz trio; we jammed in counterpoint, in unison, in rhythm. She was brilliant. Was she always this?
The second after we released the last word, the crowd was frozen, stunned. And then the room started to shake with energy -- in an instant my coach was onstage, people whom I had never met were hugging me, someone came up to us crying, saying, "Thank you. As a woman, I knew that had to be said, and you all said it so beautifully."
Sidebar: Not Your Father’s Poetry
By Bruce Weber of The New York Times
Poetry slams have come of age. As poetry in general has surged in popularity in the United States, this offshoot has emerged as a way for passionate, mostly young people —representing a wide ethnic and racial range —to air their voices and for an evidently eager audience to hear and embrace them.
Slamming is a weird and lively amalgam of performance art, hip-hop concert, and —with its judges holding up numerical score cards —Olympic figure skating. It's a national grassroots movement, which began when a Chicago poet named Marc Smith held the first competitions in a bar in 1984. The 11th annual National
Poetry Slam was held in August, and the 3rd annual National Youth Poetry Slam was held last spring.
Slam poetry has been boosted by, among other things, the popularity of rap music, the boom in stand-up comedy, and the proliferation of stage monologuists. At the same time, sales of poetry books have soared —30 percent in the last three years. who could
Close Read
Synthesize:
Skim the title and the topic sentences of the sidebar. What do you think your will learn from it?
Many words have positive or negative connotations, or associations. The word highlighted word plight has a negative connotation. What similar word would have a less negative connotation? Utilize a dictionary to check your answer.
Synthesize: Based on what you’ve read so far, how would you describe this poetry slam?

Watching others perform, says Danny Solis, who has competed out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, "showed me that poetry could be something that lifts an audience to another plac e, like jazz or salsa or dance.”
Arenas of Support
I knew then that it was real, and that it was necessary to find creative ways to express yourself, so that people, especially adults, will take you seriously and realize that you have some monumental things to say as well. Poetry slams give poets arenas full of excitement and support that encourage us, urge us to tell them what we have to say.
We didn't win, but it couldn't have mattered less to me. When I think of the young men and women with whom I shared the stage, and especially of my team, I think of an Adrienne Rich poem:
Synthesize: What part of
Shapiro’s experience is accentuated in this highlighted paragraph?
No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
Sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air, dappled with scars still exuberantly budding.
Rachel Shapiro, 18, a recent graduate of Friends Seminary in New York City, competed in the National Youth
Poetry Slam in San Francisco in April.
After Reading Question
After Reading Questions
Common Core Standards: RI.2 Determine a central/main idea of a text and analyze its development, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by

details. W.1a-b Introduce precise claims, supplying evidence for each.
1.
Recall: Why have the young poets come together in the “The Night Poetry Rocked the House”?
2.
Summarize: How was the National Youth Poetry Slam a rewarding experience for the author of the article?
3.
Synthesize: Review the graphic organizer you completed as your read the main article and the sidebar. How does the sidebar enhance your comprehension of Shapiro’s poetry slam experience? Explain your answer.
4.
Analyze Tone: Describe the tone of the main article and the tone of the sidebar. How are the tones different? Why do you think the tones differ?
Reading-Writing Connection
Directions: For this Reading-Writing Connection assignment, first read the writing task. Next, read the steps to answer the task and examine the graphic organizer provided to help you write an appropriate response.
Writing Task: You have now read three very different depictions of three very different depictions of three very different types of competitions – a swim meet, a bodybuilders’ contest, and poetry slam. Which depiction do you find the most captivating? What elements of that poem make it more compelling to you than the others?
4 Steps to Answer the Writing Task: To answer this writing task, follow these step:
1.
Determine which piece you find yourself caring about most. Write a short statement describing why. This statement will be your claim.
2.
Write down the elements of this poem that make it the most captivating to you. These will be the reasons for your choice.
3.
Locate the details and quotations in the piece that show each of your reasons. These will be your evidence.
4.
State your opinion and support it with your reasons and evidence. You may want to mention any strengths of the other selections, but also point out the reasons why – despite these strengths – they don’t match up to your choice.