Abstract:

In Haiti, the success rate in primary school (called basic school) remains very low. Plus, the majority of teachers do not have sufficient knowledge of effective pedagogical approaches to writing which leads to students’ demotivation and low sense of effectiveness as scriptwriters by the end of primary school. As part of an international cooperation project, we conducted a research using a mixed method.

We chose slam, a kind of contemporary and urban poetry (Boultif, 2017; Vorger, 2011), as a workshop activity to improve students' writing skills, motivation and sense of effectiveness. The objectives of the research were:
1) to assess late primary students’ motivation and sense of competence in writing;
2) to enhance their creativity in writing.

The research took place in two primary schools in Port-au-Prince in the context of a severe socio-political crisis. Twelve trained facilitators (10 females and 2 males) delivered the workshops in 13 sessions of 90 minutes each. A total of 64 students aged 12 to 13 participated in the after-school writing workshops (26 boys and 38 girls). Students completed a questionnaire on their motivation and their perception of their writing skills before and after the program.

Open-ended questions and the 41 students’ slam texts were subjected to content analysis using the qualitative analysis software Nvivo 12. Closed-ended questions were subjected to a quantitative descriptive analysis. The results indicate that, after the workshops, internal factors (e.g. playing with language and having fun with writing) were more important than external factors of motivation (e.g. taking care of spelling). The results also indicate that students benefit from their writing and oral expression skills, self-confidence and empowerment, and that their texts demonstrate a high degree of linguistic creativity and thematic richness. They were able to express joy, love, anger and distress. They spoke of the strength of mutual aid and sharing. They also spoke about politics and the irresponsibility of the leaders as well as the beauty of Haïti’s cities.

These results are consistent with those obtained in other socio-cultural contexts (Patmanathan, 2014; Troia, 2007) regarding the impact of the writing workshops. They also contribute to new knowledge about slam poetry as a suitable literary genre for young people, even in primary school. This project has contributed to a renewal of teaching practices as well as the creation of spaces in which students could free themselves through slam poetry in the context of a socio-political crisis and of an educational reform in Haiti.

Keywords:

Writing, slam poetry, primary school, cooperation project, Haiti.