The first time my students participated in a poetry slam, I had been a teacher for less than three weeks. I was hired to replace a teacher who would be retiring in mid-September when he turned 55 and became eligible. In those few weeks, he was forced to “hang on,” he was my 1:1 mentor. He introduced me to the poetry slam which he had seen at a coffee house in California. Since the first novice go, I have developed a number topics for poetry slam in high school English.
What is a Poetry Slam?
Simply stated, a poetry slam is a brackets style competition that pits poet against poet, poem against poem. Members of the audience vote to determine which poem/poet will go on to the next round. Generally, the audience is allowed to determine their own criteria when they vote.
Oh and a key aspect of a poetry slam is that once a presenter is done, the audience snaps instead of clapping.
The Tale of my First Poetry Slam
My mentor, Jerry Egger, suggested that we start with poems by professionals. This took some of the pressure off of the students, but still required them to do some analysis and preparations.
Together we went through the text book. And, yes, we had a text book and it was actually a pretty good one. This was way before a computer in every classroom. Although, I guess it wasn’t really before Poets.org, we certainly didn’t know about that site. Jerry hand drew brackets and we randomly assigned poems to students who then had to prepare a reading of the poems for competition.
We followed this competition with a poetry slam of student written poems.
During each round, only three students got to vote. They were selected at random and in different combinations throughout the competition. We put no criteria on how they voted.
Why Poetry Slams Work in High School English
There is actually a lot of powerful reasons to have a poetry slam in high school English classes. It requires speaking, listening, along with comprehension and evaluation. For a poem to be successful, the student must not only understand the poem but also make a powerful presentation. Students in the audience must listen carefully and determine their own criteria to evaluate which poem will move into the next round..
If you are already convinced, be sure to grab my new, free resource: A Guide to the Poetry Slam for High School Teachers. It includes all the how-tos, 5 topics for poetry slam, a list of 50 poems that high school students love and blank bracket templates.
How to Do a Poetry Slam
It is pretty easy to do a poetry slam in the classroom:
- Determine where the poems will come from professionals or students.
- Determine who will find the poems. You could provide a list of poems and assign them randomly. You could provide a list of poems and have the students choose or you could have the students find the poems. If you decide to have the students find their own poems, be sure to direct them to reputable sites like Poets.org, PoetryFoundation.org and Poetry 180. Obviously, if you decide to use poems written by the students, you already have a plan for where to find the poems. Be sure to check out 5 topics for poetry slam below.
- Determine the brackets. You can find blank brackets on-line or you can grab this A Guide to Poetry Slam for High School Teachers freebie which includes a couple sets of brackets that you can use in your classes.
- Determine the voting process. You can have just a few students vote each time or you can have each member of the class vote or you can vote by committee. I talk more about all these options below.
- Then set your dates and begin.
Student Presenters
This year my classes are just over 16 students each, so I decided to assign each student one of the poems from the brackets. Students drew a title. To accommodate the class that has 19, I doubled up on a few of the more complicated poems. Then I gave students a class period to prepare their poem.
They needed to read, annotate and analyze the poem for meaning and structure. Then they need to prepare a really great reading of the poem that helps the class to understand the meaning of the poem. Additionally, they need to share at least one element that they think is beautiful about the poem and one aspect of writer’s craft that stands out. They are also allowed to use any other resources as part of their preparations. Many of the students looked up biographical information about the poets. It was fabulous. I learned stuff from their presentations despite the fact that this is the third year we have done this poetry slam.
After the students present, the rest of the class completes their own reflection on beauty and author’s craft before we have a full class discussion of the poem. This time, individuals voted using Google Forms.
Three ways to Vote During a Class Poetry Slam
Consensus
Kelly Gallagher advocates for small groups voting through consensus. Students must discuss the poems in groups of 3-5 and then enter a consensus vote. This requires the groups to really discuss the merits of their poems. The drawback to this is that some students will be upset because their group didn’t really come to consensus, instead it became a majority vote.
Select Individuals
The first time I did a poetry slam we only had three voters per class. They were not the same voters each day, and they were picked at random. The advantage to this is that the students who vote feel important and really listen. The drawback is that students who are not voting in that round may not give their full attention.
Individual
In the last two years of poetry slams, I have used technology (Google Forms or Polls in NearPod or Google Meets) to help me collect votes from individuals. This allows every voice to really have a say. The drawback is that you have to live post the poll. If you don’t, students will vote before the discussions have concluded not really listening to all that the other students have to say. Students like to see me post the pie chart of the vote. I don’t post this until all the votes are in. That way, no one is influenced by the way the vote is going.
Poetry Slams Ideas for High Schools using Remote or Hybrid Learning
When my classes we learning through hybrid instruction we were still able to have our annual poetry slam. We used Near Pod. Students had access to print copies of the poems. I read the poems out loud and then students posted their responses to the digital white board once for the things they liked and observed about the aesthetics and once for writer’s craft. Then we discussed verbally and voted using the poll option.
This is a great opportunity to also add some collaborative annotations to the analysis that students using in their study of these poems. For ideas on how to include collaborative annotations, check out this post.
Topics for a Poetry Slam
British Poets vs. American Poets
Have a good trans-Atlantic competition of poets from Shakespeare to Frost. Choose 8 or 16 poets/poems on each side, then have the students work through the brackets.
I developed a poetry slam for my AP Literature® Students that Includes 8 British poems groups and 8 American poems. They are put in their brackets by century: 1600-1700s, 1800-1850, 1851-1899, Early 1900s. I decided to include well known poets who had stood the test of time while also trying to incorporate women and authors of color where I could.
So, team British Poet includes Shakespeare, Blake, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Hardy and Katherine Mansfield. Team American Poet is Phillis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet, Dickinson and Whitman, Poe and Wordsworth, Frost and Claude McKay.
If you want to try a poetry slam, but don’t want the work associated with setting it up, grab this ready made poetry slam here.
Harlem Renaissance Poets
I set this one up as a random set of brackets. But, you could also do poets who are well known vs. little known poets or choose based on poems rather than poets. Harlem Renaissance Poets my students love: Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Leslie Pinckney Hill, Fenton Johnson, Angelina Weld Grimké, Alice Dunbar-Nation, Anne Spencer, Jessie Redmond Faucet, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Melvin B. Tolson, William Waring Cuney, Arna Bontemps, Sterling A. Brown.
Dead Poets vs. Living Poets
I haven’t tried this one, but wouldn’t it be fun to put Shakespeare up against Nikki Grimes, Frost against Martin Espada. There are so may options here that this would be a great poetry slam to have students find the poems. Divide the class in half. One half looks for poems by dead poets. The other half looks for poems by living poets.
Pair a Poetry Slam with another Poetry Project
Each year, my AP students do a quazi-reseach assignment where they choose a theme and then collect poems by professional/published poets to create an anthology. It would be easy to add a presentation aspect to this project. Students choose one of the poems from their anthology to put up for competition in their class.
You could, of course, do the same thing if your students wrote their own poems too.
Let the Poets Do their Own Readings
Another fun idea would be to choose poems and poets who have recordings of their poems available on YouTube or through Poets.org. When my students study “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, I love to have them listen to her read her own poem so they can hear how she uses enjambment. But it would also be great to let the poets present their own poems for the competition. You could still provide students with print copies of the poems for study. But rather than you or your students reading the poem, the poem could be read by the poets themselves. Lots of twentieth and twenty-first century poets have recordings of their works available.
Get Ready to Share These Poetry Slam Topics with Your Students
My AP students are currently in the throes of our British vs. American Poets Poetry Slam. I love these other topics for poetry slams so much that I want to do a second poetry slam later this year. I am torn between the Harlem Renaissance and pairing our Student Curated Poetry Anthologies with a Poetry Slam. It would definitely give the students so much more agency in the in our slam.
Be sure to grab my free Poetry Slam Ideas for High School Guide to help you plan your own classroom poetry slam. And if you are looking for other ideas for teaching poetry analysis in your high school classes, be sure to check out this post.
Related Resources
More Poetry Analysis Ideas: 4 Ways to Teach Poetry Analysis
Dive Deeper into the Poets of the Harlem Renaissance: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance for High School:
Or tie your poetry slam to Women’s History Month–your own version of March Madness 😂: 9 Meaningful Poetry Activities for Women’s History Month
Need a quick poetry unit: The Sonnet in Poetry: Teaching Sonnet Analysis
Lesa Smith is the Poetry Goddess: 15 Poetry Collections For Your Classroom Library (Smith Teaches 9 to 12)
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British Poets vs. American Poets Poetry Slam
