Using the “Right Poem” to Raise Sociocultural Consciousness

Abstract

This essay posits performance poetry as an innovative pedagogical tool in teacher education. The expanding racial divide between white teacher candidates and schoolchildren of color calls for new and meaningful ways to inform teacher candidates’ sociocultural understandings of schoolchildren of color. Excerpts from the author's autoethnographic narrative poems are interwoven with the words and wisdom of notables Nikki Giovanni and Gwendolyn Brooks. Reflections on the author's efforts to integrate the right poem reveal success when framed by Urie Brofenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory.

Key words::

• autoethnographic poetry
• critical literacy
• critical race theory
• neopoetics
• teacher education.