Outspoken!: How to Improve Writing And Speaking Skills Through Poetry Performance

Call it poetic justice, but not only is performance poetry the hottest, hippest way for students to engage in literate behaviors, it's also an effective vehicle for helping students meet language arts standards. In fact, poetry performance meets eight of NCTE and IRA's twelve national standards for English instruction and contributes to the mastery of the other four. Best of all, it works in any setting, and with "Outspoken " you'll learn how the spoken word can rev up the energy in your classroom while achieving your curricular goals.

In "Outspoken " poet-educators Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger take you through the process of developing, implementing, and assessing poetry performance - and beyond. Beginning with ideas for encouraging even the most reluctant students to speak clearly and write from the heart, this handbook uses familiar workshop structures to guide young poets toward vibrant completed pieces and an exciting, dynamic delivery. With lessons involving memoir, metaphor, character, point of view, and articulation, you'll find a fully realized unit that's as enjoyable to teach as it is to learn and that's full of specific advice on assessing the writing, speaking, performing, and learning of your students.

Holbrook and Salinger also go outside the classroom, providing ideas and guidelines for running a poetry slam in your school, conducting a poetry performance series, and bringing in a visiting poet. In addition, "Outspoken " comes with a DVD that contains "Outspoken: Playhouse Square Center's Slam-U Program," a documentary that chronicles Salinger and his students as they prepare to compete in a national poetry slam, demonstrating what student performance poetry looks like up close and the positive effect it has on students' lives and learning. Fun, practical, conversational, and full of innovations sure to enliven any class or school, "Outspoken " will become an instant hit with your students - and with your curriculum supervisor.

Michael Salinger is founding curriculum director of the Slam U program at Playhouse Square Foundation and the founder of Poetry Slam Inc. and SUNY Oneonta's Poetry Cross Training Conference. He is the coauthor (with Sara Holbrook) of Outspoken! How to Improve Writing and Speaking Through Poetry Performance (Heinemann 2009). Visit Michael's web site at www.outspokenlit.com.Sara Holbrook is the author of eleven poetry books for children, teens and adults. She has performed for audiences across the US and abroad, for children and adults, in schools, teacher conferences, and bars and once in a boxing ring in Stockholm. According to acclaimed author and poet Jane Yolen, "she does not speak a poem or say a poem or even perform a poem, she sticks her hand down the poem's throat and pulls it inside out. She makes you laugh, cry, feel." Her poetry book for teens, Walking on the Boundaries of Change, won the Parent's Choice Award. She is the author of two poetry books for adults, Chicks Up Front (Cleveland State University Press) and Isn't She Ladylike, (Collinwood Media, distributed by Bottom Dog Press). Her work has been included in many anthologies, including Slam and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and she appeared in the documentary SlamNation. Her most recent publications are Outspoken! How to Improve Writing and Speaking Through Poetry Performance (Heinemann 2009), coauthored with Michael Salinger, and Practical Poetry, A Non-Standard Approach to Meeting Content Standards (Heinemann, 2005). Visit Sara's web site at www.outspokenlit.com.