November 2012 • Volume 44 • Number 2 • Pages 30-38
Literary Artistic Spaces Engage Middle Grades Teachers and Students in Critical-Multicultural Dialogue
Urban students write about their lives in one-word poems and on traveling scrawled walls.
| This article reflects the following This We Believe characteristics: Value Young Adolescents, Meaningful Learning, Multiple Learning Approaches |
M. Kristiina Montero
Article Description: The author describes the use of one-word poetry and traveling scrawled walls as forms of community-engaged public writing that can help urban young adolescents express their lived experiences. Teachers can engage in critical-multicultural questioning and simple content analysis of these student-generated texts to hear what students have to say about their social realities and then use this knowledge to transform the mainstream-centric structure of curricular guidelines, materials, and teaching styles. The instructional activities described in the article were conducted as part of a district-wide poetry writing initiative using the writings of Luis J. Rodríguez, a noted urban poet, author, artist, and community activist.
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M. Kristiina Montero is a faculty member at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: kmontero@wlu.ca
Copyright © 2012 Association for Middle Level Education