On Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 March, Year 10 English students welcomed Joel McKerrow, well-renowned slam poet, into their classrooms to introduce the new unit of ‘slam poetry writing’.

During these individual incursions with each Year 10 class, students had the opportunity to witness Joel perform some of his own poetry, and then also participate in the slam poetry writing process themselves, following his creative writing procedure.

Below are some reflections from students in the Year 10 cohort about their experience, and what their takeaways were.

• Pat Dixon – “Joel had a strong passion that matched the idea of Slam Poetry and had a presence in the classroom that set a standard for what the unit will be about. It felt like he wanted to preach to the classroom and he did with a performance that matched other videos on Slam Poetry.”
• Hamish Collins – “Joel Mckerrow provided a helpful insight into what Slam Poetry was. He expressed emotion and powerful words to the class. He has inspired me to draw on personal experiences for mine.”
• Billy McWhinney – “Very loud, exciting, different way of learning but it was interesting and helpful. Kept me engaged and felt more motivated to work. Easy to understand because he knows what he is talking about.”
• Daniel Geason – “Joel McKerrow’s incursion the other day was definitely an interesting experience. It was interesting to see how many different styles of poetry is and how broad it is. The performance aspect of it gave the poetry much more depth than it would if I read it. I did like the experience and it was good to learn about a different form of poetry.”
• Dylan Thapliyal – “Joel McKerrow was a very entertaining individual, trying his hardest to motivate each student to awaken any potential or hidden talent that they may had for poetry, which they have shut away due to the expectations of society, and being afraid to not fit in. He tried his hardest to make each student feel comfortable, congratulating them on their attempt at the free writing, and overall was a very nice person to have in the class.”

On behalf of the English Learning Area, we are grateful for Joel’s presence to help engage our students and provide them with a great deal of new ideas and thoughts about the poetry writing process!

Mr Andrew Wight

English Learning Area Leader