Taniqua: That's Not Something I Do With My Family

By Author: Amandda
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Students' relationships with their families, their confidence in their poetry writing, and the topics they selected to include in their poetry affected if and when they shared their poetry. Some students found that sharing emotions sometimes caused discouraging reactions from family members who were not sensitive to the difficulties of expressing their perspectives to others. The factors and situations surrounding the reading of poetry can increase the tensions, and the pressure of sharing can impact how students feel about family involvement. Taniqua was a student who did not tell her parents about the coffeehouses because she was not comfortable expressing herself through poetry if they were involved.
During the first year of the project, Taniqua was shy and reserved and did not volunteer to read any of her poetry out loud. During the second year of the program, she began to open up and share her poetry as Tag Heuer Replica a result of her increasing confidence and the encouragement of her peers. In a conversation where some of the students ...
... were discussing their discomfort with performing poetry, Taniqua shared her concerns that prevented her from inviting her mother, "I wonder what if I made a mistake? What would she say? What would happen to me when I got home? Would she say something good about me? What if I mess up?" Taniqua was uncomfortable involving her family in this type of venue because the nature of her relationships with them made it difficult to share such personal poetry. She could be characterized as reserved about sharing her feelings and less comfortable performing in front of the class. Taniqua was like several students in this class who tended to rely on the support from peers rather than working with her parents to improve and communicate through poetry. She chose to separate the personal nature of the poetry topics from her relationships with family members.

Although most of the students did not hesitate to express their feelings and emotions among their classmates during the poetry workshops, several were resistant to expressing those feelings to their families. Sherie summed it up when she explained how the students in the class might feel:

I guess it would be the same as what we are saying now. Some of us like when our parents come and we like to read in front of our parents, some don't. And I think that's how a lot of people upstairs [in class] feel. Some like it some don't. And some are scared in general because they don't want to Tag Heuer Replica Watches be criticized. Everybody's opinion counts for them.

For some students, there was a direct relationship between their desire to involve their families and their choice to share their poetry. Some students took on the responsibility of deciding whether they parents had the time or energy to participate.