In this article, the author, a poet and teaching artist, shares how he successfully brought slam poetry to College Hill Middle School in Texarkana, Arkansas. In 2001 he discovered slam poetry--a poetry-reading format in which poets compete in dramatic readings of their works--and went to Slam Nationals in Seattle on the Arkansas slam team. He…

The authors acted on their belief that familiarity with text and repeated readings of it would help students with fluency, comprehension, and confidence. They assembled a list of "cuttings" excerpts of full-length books from which seventh-grade students could choose to prepare a public reading. After working alone, in pairs, and reading for a…