Katherine DeGuzman

Dr. Mortenson
EDU-1055
September 20, 2020
Commenting on Teaching and Learning
At the beginning of the class, I will ask my students to define and teach them how to
pronounce the word “griot.” I will keep it as an open-discussion and make it an environment
where they should not feel afraid to be wrong. I will have policies in place such as giving full
attention to the speaker, “what is said here, stays here,” as well as, telling them that there is no
such as thing as “wrong” or “incorrect” in poetry. After a few initial answers from the students, I
will then further ask to see if they know exactly what a griot does and how they pass on
information. Griots tended to pass on information by word of mouth, and this most differs from
today because information can be passed through text, voice, video, etc. Word of mouth can be
tricky because the story can change, but nowadays it is easy to capture everything and hear the
original story. Because griots originate from West Africa, I will then try to help them relate to a
griot by asking what a modern day griot would be. Again, after a few responses, I will explain
that the modern-day term for a griot is a “spoken-word artist.” Once the students begin to realize
that they are all griots, I will have them listen to a poem called “On the Subway” by The Last
Poets and ask them to analyze what the poem is saying. In doing so, this will help develop their
critical thinking skills because they can use context clues from specific words to understand the
time period it was written in. Some words I would like for them to point out are “digging” or
“dude” because these words are more outdated and at the same time have them look for
metaphors like “a mask” or the subway itself. In playing this poem, I feel that the students are
also able to relate to the group because like the group, The Last Poets, they are African-
Americans who live in New York City. This is important to follow culturally sustaining practices
because this makes the content more relatable, more memorable. I will then play a song and ask
the students to look for the exact same things as they did with the poem. Having them write
down the words that I am asking them to look for helps combine and better both their written and
spoken-word, and may overall benefit students who are more visual learners.
To assess if the students have grasped the idea of the lesson, I will have them split up into
groups and begin to write their own poems and the content will reveal the current time. I will
have four themes already prepared and each group will have their own. Respectively, they will
be “on the subway,” “in the hallway,” “on the bus,” and “on the street.” I will allow them to have
some time to speak and bounce ideas off of each other, and then they will each begin to construct
their own meaningful spoken-word. When the students bounce ideas off of each other, they will
speak their own ideas aloud and this will create confidence. They can hear different sides to a
story and collectively, they will form a larger meaning. After this, I will ask them to read their
poems aloud to the class and the other students will be able to interpret and give respectful,
constructive feedback. I will say things like “beautiful, good job, look at this improvement,” but
also things like, “in this line you can emphasize this aspect,” or “you can really play on the
words by doing this...”
 I feel that this lesson in particular is only able to work with having the students’
backgrounds in mind, as well as their participation during class. I began the lesson by asking
what a griot is and the students were able to shape the rest of the lesson from their responses.
They were able to identify that a griot is as simple as someone who tells a story and it can be told
through word, drawings, art, and even something as basic as their clothes. During the open
discussion, the students were able to guide the lesson by answering questions. For example, one
of the questions I asked was “how do people dress nowadays?” I ask this because clothing, how
hair is done, makeup is worn truly reflects different time periods and is constantly changing
through the years. Upon answering this question, the students began to give all different answers
and continued with the idea of telling a story, and using their critical thinking skills, they were
able to come to the conclusion that anyone can tell a story with their clothes. They came to this
conclusion because how you do your hair, the things you wear, is very indicative of the time. It is
like the saying that, “a picture can tell a thousand words,” and the students took that in the same
way.
As stated earlier, I feel that this lesson would not work without having the students in
mind. With the class being students of different ages and the demographic being only African-
American, the lesson revolving around a griot was completely intentional. There are other
famous poets in the world such as William Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe, but they are not
African-American. For myself, who is a person of color, even I can only relate to their poetry so
much. The Last Poets are a group of African-American griots who lived in New York, so that
alone just enhances student learning because these students can exactly empathize with them.
During the poetry writing workshop, putting the students in groups is another easy way to
promote critical thinking because they are being creative and at the same time, they are able to
get different views and opinions from like-minded people. They may all be unified in the fact
that they are African-American, but they all experience life differently and knowing how other
people feel and experience life, the other side, they are now able to question things and think
deeper. If conversation amongst peers was not enough for the students to create their own poetry,
I was still there to help provide examples for each prompt. For example, for “on the street,” I
stated that the students should try to tie in a big theme or metaphor, how they should include
accents, as well as describe what people are wearing and doing.
I wrapped up the lesson for the day with the students reading their own poetry to each
other, but the lesson was not over yet. The next day, I scheduled for the students to meet one of
The Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole, a modern-day griot. At this meeting, they were able to bring
questions from class about the poems we listened to or just ask anything about griots and poetry.
I felt that this meeting would also be the most meaningful way for the students to really retain
and remember the lesson because they would also be able to read their own poetry. If it were me,
I would feel honored to read to someone I look up to and can relate to, but for these students this
is just the beginning of them becoming a griot and one of many chances to retell their own
stories. Students who feel marginalized by society may feel like they are unable to create poetry
like this and become better scholars, but thisThis small experience is enough for students to
understand that they are poets and further raises the standard of student achievement.