Blog 5: Reflection of Ó Bhéal Project

Taken by Esther Woo

For Group 4's project with Ó Bhéal, I had the opportunity to help create a ninety minute lesson and work with twelve girls at a secondary school for The Unfinished Book of Poetry. Throughout the project, I was able to collaborate with Rachel, Kassandra, Ches, and Professor  León. We worked together to make a lesson plan that included myths, erasures, and spoken word. By using what we learned from previous workshops, we were able to utilize the curriculum and make adjustments to it in order to accommodate the students we were going to work with.

Upon completion of the project, I felt satisfied with the outcome. I learned a lot more about poetry from this project. Initially, I was hesitant to teach poetry, a subject that I am rather unfamiliar with. However, as time went by when we were at the school, I became more comfortable with the students. The students were willing to take the lessons we threw at them and even share the poems that they wrote. I was surprised by the poems that Molly wrote about love and stereotypes. The line that struck me the most was, "It was time to let him go, and realize that just because he doesn't love me doesn't mean nobody else will". Molly and her classmates were able to write poems based on personal experiences within the limited time we allotted them.

I see this as arts administration since this a form of outreach. We are able to widen our audience by working with the students from the secondary school. In addition, the workshop could inspire these young writers to continue to write about topics that interest them including women's rights. This experience helped me grow and learn more about poetry myself! I enjoyed working with the girls and I would love to do something similar in my classroom in the future.