Illustration: Scott Bakal
By Linda Christensen
Too often today, schools are about standards and common curriculum: Scarlet Letter and Huck Finn first quarter, move on to Great Gatsby ... And too often, I get caught up in that land too. Then my heart gets cracked open by students, and I remember that first I must teach the child who is in the class. By structuring a curriculum that allows room for students lives and by listening to their stories, I can locate the right book, the right poem that turns pain into power?while I teach reading and writing. Unless I consciously build these opportunities into the curriculum, there is little hope of getting authenticity from students.
Daniel Beaty, poet and playwright, came to life for me one New Year's Eve when my husband, Bill, and I watched hour after hour of the HBO show "Def Poetry Jam." I fell in love with many poets that night, but when I watched Daniel Beaty perform "Knock Knock," I knew I was witnessing a poet whose performance and words would inspire my students. I bought the "Def Poetry" DVD, transcribed the words, and carried Beaty with me to class. Partly autobiographical, the poem speaks directly to many of my students because Beaty's drive-home message in everything he does is that in order to heal ourselves, our society, and our world, we must turn our pain into power. [Beaty's "Def Poetry Jam" performance of "Knock Knock" is posted on YouTube: http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=nktBsI0PYPs.]
I taught the poem to several classes at Portland's Jefferson High School days before Barack Obama was elected president. I'd spent 24 years teaching high school language arts at this predominantly African American school, and I returned this year to work with the faculty. I left each class in tears because when poetry, like Beaty's, touches students' lives in real ways, I am reminded of both the pain and the hope that schools harbor.
"Knock Knock" is constructed in three parts. Beaty begins with the story of the father's imprisonment, moves to a direct address to the father, "Papa, come home 'cause I miss you," and ends in a letter that the poet writes to "heal" and "father" himself. The poem, and Beaty's performance, are so powerful that I didn't want to interrupt it with instruction or teacher talk before they watched it the first time. I wanted them to feel the poem. My only instruction was, "As you watch the poem, notice what works for you or doesn't work. Just jot notes, so we can talk about it after we watch it a couple of times."
After students watched the poem twice, I asked them to take a few silent minutes to write their thoughts about the poem. "Look at the copy of the poem. Think about what you notice about the poem, how you connect with the poem, what poetic devices Beaty used." Students started off by talking about what they liked about the poem?from content to form. Greg said, "I like how the poem progresses from when he was young and dependent to the point when he got older and stronger." Jerome said, "He used repetition by repeating the words 'knock knock.' Nothing was sugarcoated. I also like that it tells a story of pain. The story wasn't a nice-feeling, sweet one talking about love or flowers and moonlight. I connected to the story." Theresa liked "how the end of the poem is like a letter from his father that he wrote himself." When Shontay said, "I loved the line, 'Knock, knock down the doors of racism and poverty that I could not,'" many students nodded in agreement. Demetrius spoke up, "This last part makes me think of how much positive things our generation can do. How much potential we have."