Open mic classroom activities or school events can engage students more deeply with their writing and help reluctant students open up; they also require careful preparation, experts say, according to an article in K-12 Dive.
Educators need to think intentionally about the environment they want to create when planning a poetry slam or open mic reading night to ensure all students — even those least-inclined to speak publicly — feel included, and that audience members are supportive.
Creating space to take risks and for students to be in “discovery play mode” means building trust for how they respond to each other, says Heather Schwartz, practice advisor at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.
“Students need explicit guidance about how to give feedback,” she says. “It’s not necessarily clear to them exactly how to be helpful and kind but still feel free to share areas where they think their peers can grow.”
The audience should be encouraged up front to be positive, says Peter Kahn, a member and featured presenter for the National Council of Teachers of English and a consultant with Columbus, Ohio-based Schooled on Poetry.
Schwartz says she shares her own writing in draft stage and models how to take feedback to help prepare students to do the same.
“Give them the opportunity to practice like it’s the real thing — mimicking that opportunity, whether it’s putting them in front of a microphone or having an audience of guests where they don’t know everyone,” she says.
Schwartz suggests working one-on-one with students who are “super-reticent” about getting on stage. “If you create that kind of culture where everyone is supporting everyone, most students are willing to share something,” she says.
Faced with a student who truly doesn’t want to participate, Kahn, a former English teacher and spoken word educator, hopes that some part of them does — and he attempts to draw that out.
“I would talk to them [and say], ‘If you are nervous, or scared, that just means you’re a human being,’” he says. “Fear and excitement elicit the exact same physical response. Instead of saying, ‘I’m scared,’ say, ‘I’m excited.’”
Pair students up with each other, Kahn suggests, to provide feedback, perhaps looking for their favorite lines and discussing parts of the poem or story that “popped off the page.”
Assign students who feel confident from the get-go as “captains” for the event and pair them with more nervous kids, Kahn says. Time permitting, invite a visiting writer to a workshop where students can share their work with the guest and receive feedback, he suggests.
As the open mic activity or event approaches, prep the audience to show appreciation by clapping before and after the performance and snapping when they hear “striking lines” to create a call-and-response dynamic without disrupting the speaker’s flow, he says.
“You can hear through the snap — you couldn’t through the clap,” Kahn says. “And talk about being in the moment and respecting the mic: If someone is talking about how their grandma passed away, and they look out in the audience, you don’t want to be smiling. If it’s a humorous poem, you don’t want to be stone-faced. Be in the moment, and let your face and body language reflect that.”
Kahn does not like to show students’ scores as they’re assessed to cut down on the stress level. “If you’re doing a slam, it’s inherently a competition — but wait until the end and just announce a runner-up and a champion,” he suggests.
Involve students as much as possible when planning an event to give them a sense of ownership “in terms of how we greet people as they’re entering, what we call it, how the seating works, the lineup,” Schwartz says. “Because then it doesn’t feel like something that’s being done to them but something they’re being invited into, fully.”
K-12 Dive
