Spoken Word Letters

Spoken word, or oral poetry, can help students critically examine dominant narratives to make sense of their own experience through language and express themselves using their own vernacular. As part of a special series designed for the Letters to the Next President 2.0 project, this L2P 2.0 Make Cycle/Media Make hangout served as an invitation for students to create oral “letters” to the next president. This hangout was hosted by KQED and Youth Speaks with educators and partners from the National Writing Project and YOUmedia Learning Labs Network.

View the Conversation

During the broadcast, the conversation also took place on Twitter using the hashtags #2nextprez.

Participants for this Webinar Included: 

• Renée Gasch (host), KQED
• Catherine Cormier, San Francisco Public Library
• Khalil Anthony Peebles, Youth Speaks
• Josephus Thompson III, Poetry Project
• Rosamaria Varona, Poetry Project
• Stephanie West-Puckett, Tar River Writing Project, East Carolina University

Resources for this Webinar:

• Letters to the Next President 2.0 
• KQED
• National Writing Project
• Youth Speaks
• Youth Speaks Brave New Voices Network and Festival (mentioned in hangout)
• The Poetry Project
• The Poetry Project Institute (mentioned in hangout)
• Tar River Writing Project
• The Mix at SFPL
• L2P 2.0 Educator-Facing Make Cycle #4: Spoken Word Letters
• NWP’s L2P 2.0 Educator-Facing Make Cycles
• KQED’s Spoken Word Letter Media Make
• More on “bless, press, address” from NWP (mentioned in hangout)
• L2P 2.0 Quadbox Poem Starter (mentioned in hangout)
• Bug Body Hack by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Tar River Writing Project, and The Poetry Project (mentioned in hangout)
• Citizen Science by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Tar River Writing Project, and The Poetry Project (mentioned in hangout)
• Video prompt from Remix, Remake, Curate site (mentioned in hangout)

Photo/ KQED Education