Black History Month Poetry Program

I asked to direct a Poetry Presentation by my Special Education class and various first grade students for the Black History Month Program. Due to their ages and disibilties, I wanted to see how well they would enjoy the process and how willing they would be to perform in front of the school and parents. I believe that children with special needs have been left out of the yearly music and drama school programs by the Special area teachers or they are given minor parts and are placed in the back row where no one can see them. Most children with Learning disabilites have left brain weakness. Their right brain becomes more dominant as compensation. The right brain controls artist talents such as music,drama,creative skills. These areas are their strengths and we, as educators, want to teach to the strengths as well as the weaknesses of students. Children with disabilites are enthusiastic about the arts. As my best practice I want to educate teachers and administraters by demonstration this practice.

I taught my students about the history of African American poetry and poets from the Slavery period, the Harlem Rennasance to Present Hip Hop Artists who write Hip-Hop Poetry and sometimes set them to music or song. Even very young K,1,2 graders were enthusiastic about the history of poetry and the poets. They had difficulty memorizing the Hip-hop poems for the program, but enought to recite some by themselves and others along with a CD. They were able to learn movements and pantomine along with their verbal presentation during the program. I felt inspired to do even more with young students and my class who have LD disabilities after this project. I find that if the teacher is enthusiastic about poetry, the students follow. We used a book for children titled HIP-HOP for Children. In collaboration with the Art teacher ( Ms. Lippincott) my class drew pictures to illustrate the poems from the book and I typed the poems to display with thier artwork. Ms. Lippincott made a banner for our program. After the lessons and the program, I observed that my students went to the library shelf and picked this book for independent reading time after time even though they are unable to read the words! They request poetry when I ask them what book they'd like me to read during Read-Aloud time by the teacher.