Poetry Takes A Stand

So on my internship i was given the opportunity to teach year 9 a poetry unit called 'Poetry Takes a Stand'. This was a thematic based unit looked at poems and songs that were about particular issues in society and I thoroughly enjoyed teaching it, and my students were highly engaged in learning. It followed a visual texts unit which tied in quite well with music films clips as visual representations of the lyrics.

Here is a clip for a song called 'Hero of War' - perhaps one of the most moving war songs I've heard.

Another song we looked at was Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car'. This song really allowed my girls to engage with the issue of poverty which led to quite a heated class debate which was great to see!

Just thought I would share these with everyone as I thought it was a great way to learn about poetry (along with poems that linked in with these themes) and I particularly enjoyed teaching these songs :)

Inspiration....

Before the internship begins, I wanted to post a few clips from films that are quite inspiring to me and demonstrate some of the values I hope I can pass on to my students.

This is a great scene from the film Freedom Writers.

And this is another great scene from the film Coach Carter.