Bring Social Justice Poetry to Your Classroom

Poet Adrienne Rich once asked:

How can we connect the process of learning to write well with [a] student’s own reality, and not simply teach her/him how to write acceptable lies in standard English?

The question appeared in her 1979 essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously.” Last week, Adrienne Rich passed away [2], leaving today’s educators to ponder alone a question that remains as pertinent as ever.

One of the most overlooked answers to Rich’s questions is social justice poetry. Rich’s own poetry reached out into the worlds of her students, confronting injustice, sexuality, feminism, and violence. And yet, within the classroom—even language arts classroom—poetry is often relegated to a supporting role, despite its remarkable capacity to engage students of all ages.  

Perhaps this hesitation can be explained by the general perception that poetry is academic—difficult to understand and more difficult to teach. The reality is that poetry in its infancy was simply an effective means of transmitting information, both factual and emotional, because of its ability to lodge itself in the memory. That efficacy has not waned with the centuries. Yes, many poets now write primarily for the beauty of the language. But others—some professional poets, some everyday adults and children—write poems to convey a message. 

Social justice poetry can be a valuable tool when attempting to connect with a student’s “own reality.” Dr. A. Vincent Ciardiello of Iona College explores this in his article, “’Talking Walls’: Presenting a Case for Social Justice Poetry in Literacy Education. [3]”

Ciardiello highlights the anonymous poetry written on the walls of Angel Island immigration station by early 20th century Chinese immigrants, some of whom were young children. These are far from the only social justice poems available to teachers, though. Many well known poets have written poems that pertain to the issues that affect students, even if students may not immediately recognize the connection. The relevance of Walt Whitman’s poetry, for example, may not be obvious until students encounter the lines of his “The Great City”:  

Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons

and

Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;

Not sure how to start implementing social justice poetry into your classroom? Ciardiello lists seven helpful guidelines in his article [3].

1. Set up a classroom learning environment that supports literacy as a fundamental human right.
2. Introduce the nature and scope of social justice poetry.
3. Present models of students’ social justice poetry.
4. Use students’ lived experiences to teach the elements of social justice poetry.
5. Set up social justice poetry learning stations. Display literary models of age-appropriate social justice poetry by theme.
6. Implement reading and writing strategies for teaching social justice poetry.
7. Select relevant topics on social justice.

After reading poems that address real social issues, students often feel empowered to write their own poems using words that are authentic rather than borrowed, raw rather than polished.  By allowing students to write “their own reality” through a form that is powerfully accessible, we have a chance—as Rich would say—of avoiding the old lies.

Pettway is associate editor of Teaching Tolerance.