Brave New Voices

Over the last several years, YOUTH SPEAKS after-school poetry workshops have helped turn hundreds of student writers into passionate poets. and now, Jen Weiss, director of YOUTH SPEAKS New York, and Schott Herndon share some of the secrets of their success-enabling you to transform your poetry lessons into a dynamic learning environment, where students develop not only a passion for poetry, but also the skill of clear and powerful expression.

 Utilizing student examples from their spoken word poetry workshops, Weiss and Herndon present their methods and outline a practical five-week course that foxters poetic awareness by focusing on writing, self-reflection, and performance. Designed specifically for middle and high school English classsrooms, Brave New Voices offers teachers an overview of spoken word poetry and explores the relationship between poetic forms, youth expression, and performance. 

Ultimately, Brave New Voices provides teachers with a "how-to" guide to staging a teen poetry slam, enabling students to unlock their poetic passion in front of their peers. For all levels of students and developing artisits, from the shy to the savvy, here is a way to spark a love of poetry. For students already composing poems, here is a way to help them take a powerful step forward in their growth as writers. And for teachers, here is a way to liberate poetry from dry textbooks by tapping the poetic potential within the next generation.