The art of belonging: exploring the effects on the English classroom when poetry meets multilingual digital storytelling

Abstract

This paper explores what happened in the English classroom when two innovative projects merged and spoken word poetry became part of multilingual digital storytelling. As a Spoken Word Educator and Teacher Educator, we wanted to explore the complexity of bringing together these multimodal art forms. Making a poem come to life though film is hard and the research presented here interrogates these processes through working with a group of 13–14 year old students in the English classroom. In the process of bringing together spoken word and multilingual digital storytelling, these students interrogate notions of belonging and uncover stories that matter through emotional and creative encounters with personal and cultural artefacts. These young people discover a shared imagery across languages and cultures and reclaim ownership over learning in the English classroom. Foregrounding spoken word and multilingualism in the English classroom had a transformative effect on young people’s self-expression and imaginative thinking.