Sherie And Shakira: A Cohesive Fit Between Family And Poetry

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This poetry program opened up lines of communication for some families, providing them with an avenue for expressing feelings and communicating ideas that had not been tapped before, particularly in a school setting. Several students found that their families' participation was a source of support for them and used their poetry to communicate feelings and experiences. Encouragement to participate in school activities can be affected by parents' perceived skills and knowledge (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandier, 1997) and this was certainly the case in this family literacy Drogram. Of the five students who participated in the focus groups, the two students who experienced the most involvement wrote with their families outside Cartier Replica of school. For example, Sherie valued her family's participation and knew that her grandmother and farther "worked hard to come to the coffeehouse" and this was both encouraging and important for Sherie. Sherie, her father, and grandmother attended two of the three coffeehouses. She explained "It feels good to have ...
... support. And they're always saying to do your jest at everything. And when you do your best, you've tot someone there to encourage you."

Sherie often used the poetry coffeehouses to express her feelings about her family. She was comfortable sharing her life experiences and would read poetry relating these experiences in class and at the evening coffeehouses. My field notes indicated that Sherie expressed that she had had a lot of problems with her family and that she would try and keep it to herself but it didn't work. She is now able to write a poem and show it to someone as a way to communicate what she is thinking.

slot only did Sherie write poetry to her parents, but hey began writing back to her in poetic form because hey discovered that it was a valuable way of expressing and communicating feelings and experiences, they wrote regularly at home and Sherie continued writing about the themes and topics during poetry workshops in the classroom. For Sherie, poetry was a comfortable medium that increased talk and expression between her parents, grandparents, and her, and his allowed for a connection between her home experiences and classroom learning. As a result, the participation and involvement in the poetry program was comfortable and extended her family's support and guidance for Sherie.

Shakira also felt comfortable sharing her poetry and invited her family to participate in the poetry program. Her family attended two of the three coffeehouses and she additionally shared her poetry with her family on a regular basis to convey her feelings. She explained that My father left and I was angry, but my mom didn't want me to talk about it. I could write poems, though. I wrote two poems about my dad, about hating my dad. When I showed my mom, she broke down and hugged me.

Poetry opened up avenues of communication between Shakira and her mom that may not have been there otherwise. Shakira also characterized her mother's attendance as a "bad thing" because emotional topics sparked strong reactions within her mother which made Shakira uncomfortable at times and affected the topics she selected to write about. She reflected on these feelings during a focus group:

Shakira: Yeah, but it [having family come to poetry performances] can also be a bad thing. I know my mom, she comes to the coffeehouses and especially when she comes to the poetry slams. She messes me up because she be sitting in the crowd making these funny faces, [contorts face and imitates some of the faces that her mom makes

Sherie: That's what made me cry [referring to the last coffeehouse]. Your mother....
Shakira: Well, she's been through the same thing and that's why she just went home and she cried....
Me: So, it's more pressure sometimes, to have your family?
Shakira: Yeah.

While Shakira used poetry as a conduit for telling her mother about her experiences, the emotional nature of what she was writing about sparked similar feelings from her mother and made it difficult for her mother Tag Heuer Replica Watches to listen when Shakira was reading. Despite the sensitive topics and emotions from her poetry, Shakira did not hinder her mother's participation in the coffeehouse.

Both of these students expressed that the emotional nature of poetry was hard work, but they were willing to share their writing with their family. Their family members, in turn, were able to attend and participate by reading their own poetry. In the cases of Sherie and Shakira, the literacy program and goals were in alignment with the literacy practices and relationships they had with their families. They were comfortable with the expectations and were willing and able to participate; as a result, these two students promoted the events within their families and encouraged their families' attendance.