Changing Lives With Poetry In The Classroom
I’m not sure how to greet you.
So I look at your wet-grass stained shoes.
Then back at your 17-year-old face.
And I say,
“Come in. Get out of the rain.”
— Joseph Ross
It starts with a literature class.
That class could be the first time someone realizes the value of their own perspective or the emotional depth of history. An American literature class may be the first time some students read a Black author or the first time they ever see a white teacher praising a Black author.
What helps turn that classroom into a truly safe space for societal education and personal growth? Supportive coaches and a positive school culture, for one. And most importantly, a teacher who acts in an honestly inclusive way.
Enter: Mr. Joseph Ross from the English Department of Gonzaga College High School.
Joseph is a poet himself and because of his efforts, his school has welcomed poetry into all kinds of places.
“I insisted that at a Black History Month assembly, we had to have students reading a book. That became the first place that the whole school at once saw this amazing thing. A couple of years later, every issue of the school newspaper asked the club to have a poem in it. We can slowly build that stuff. I joke that once we have a poem at every graduation, my takeover will be complete.”
Poetry education makes history more real
A history teacher at Gonzaga did a research project with students at the Georgetown archives about Gonzaga’s history with slavery, and they discovered names of people who worked at Gonzaga as enslaved people.
Joseph says, “We were all stunned when all of a sudden we had a name. The poets couldn’t shake that. They were talking about writing about it, and pretty soon, we put together a chapbook of poems called ‘Garden: Gonzaga Poets Respond to the Slavery Research Project.’”
The combination of a history research project and poetry response project is something that will sit deep with the students and make it that much more real for them.
“Poets watch everything. They watched it last summer as high school students. They’re not blind. They see it all and feel a need to write about it. They’re looking at the world around them and filtering it through their art, which is the highest thing we can ask of them.”
How Frederick Douglass leads to impactful moments
Reading “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” in class has led Joseph to quite a few impactful moments.
Two of which include:
All the kids were packing up and heading out of the room, and one student was just sitting at his desk. Joseph looked over and asked if he was doing alright. The student looked up and said, “I have just never seen words do this before.”
Another moment was after reading a particularly horrible section from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass — about essentially watching his grandmother being sent off to starve to death — and again, the students were packing up and walking out. This one quiet kid was still sitting at his desk. He looked up at me and said, “It was that bad, wasn’t it?” He was processing that on an emotional level, which is what poetry does.”
Joseph says, “You have these little moments because of good writing that pierces something and all of a sudden they feel something, and they understand it in a new way. And they think, ‘I can express myself like this. And I need to express myself like this.’ Both black students saying it about various injustices and white students saying they need to speak up about this. White students have to speak up and carry this too.”
The power of the English classroom
Joseph says it best:
“The English classroom can be a transformative place. People change in there because of the things they’ve read and the things they write. It’s a place where students meet writers who have tried to make sense of their world through beauty, by writing a beautiful story, essay, or poem. And slowly over the course of an academic year, they see this string of American writers who have looked at their world and made sense of it through an art form. It changes us to be in the middle of that.”
But how do you create that atmosphere in the classroom? By spending the right amount of time on the right amount of topics. The entire year shouldn’t be dedicated to grammar and punctuation unless it’s a linguistics class. The high school English class is typically a combination of literature and grammar, right? So spend the right amount of time on literature to build the critical thinking and analytical skills students need.
Joseph encourages exactly this:
“The comma is not as important as the heartbeat of an essay. We can work on commas, but the most important thing is what you are saying and what you want me to think. If you can’t make that clear, wherever the comma is doesn’t make a difference.”
“It’s not about balance, it’s about proportion. Commas are important little things, but they’re little things. You’ve got to spend big time on the big things and little time on the little things.”
Final Tip from Joseph Ross
If you haven’t yet, you will want to watch or listen to this entire episode because it’s full of crucial conversations and valuable insight to impactful teaching and learning.
We’ll leave you with this final thought from Joseph:
“Buy a book of poetry, read it, and then give it away.”
Joseph Ross is the author of four books of poetry: Raising King (2020), Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013), and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications including The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Southern Quarterly, Xavier Review, Poet Lore, Tidal Basin Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Sojourners. Joseph currently teaches in the Department of English at Gonzaga College High School.
Discover much more about Joseph’s accomplishments at josephross.net
