Old tools in a new repertoire: poetry, exchange and a changing speaker community in Corsican bilingual schoolsAlexandra JaffeCalifornia State University Long [email protected]
Focus: Performance, Representation, Creativity,
Circulation: in and out of schoolGenres moving across time and social scales
How are "old” genres of cultural and linguistic creative practice being transformed and recontextualized through being used in and circulated through new spaces with “new” social actors?
How do new media and channels of circulation
play a role in socializationshape practice and meaning
What newindexicalitiessubjectivities/forms of expertise/legitimacy
What implications for notions of
legitimate speaker of the minority language?a minority language "community of practice
Bilingual education: some of the challenging goals
Promote use of language by children outside of school
pleasure, not just obligation
Draw the society in to the school and its project
Create Communities of Practice in which new speakers will be recognized as legitimate “school-based”/academic vs “traditional” knowledge and competence
Create “new speakers”bridge the gap between the cultural and identity value of Corsica and the linguistic competencies of learners
Give children the tools and motivation for an “appropriation” of the language as part of their personal identity projects
Link the personal to a collective social project
Authenticity and Authority
Chjam’è rispondi: Call and ResponseTraditional improvisational poetic "joust”
Form: 6 lines with 8 feet
Rhyme schemes: ABCBDB
ABABAB
ABCBCC
Sung (the melody or “versu” varies by region and poet)
First poet launches a verse; second responds immediately
Ideally, repeating rhyme of last line; in all cases, responding to theme
“Macagna”—humorous/teasing key
Esthetic criteria: Cleverness, humor, form, vocabulary
CIRCULATION: traditional and new media circuits and contexts
1) traditional context: informal gatherings, cafes, festivals, etc.
(Teacher) Christophe Limongi
...
2) traditional context modified with formalized staging: Poets “on stage” for an audience (cultural “recovery” and “revistalization”; professionalization?)
..3) written online, in
Corsican-language forums
New locus for both apprenticeship and exchange
Linked to in-person events (“pre- and post-game”) as well as independent of them
Shift: writing precedes oral practice
Young Teacher-Poet’s apprenticeship process
now it’s your turn to respond and you will see that you will have to search for new words to respond. It’s a nice exercise.
the Chjama i rispondi has as its subject the simple things in life. The first person who sings attacks and the other responds.Shall we give it a try?
...4) Media (traditional and new) and Internet circulation
•most/all in-person meet-ups are videotaped and posted online
•poets engage in both syncronous and asynchronous exchanges in text, email
•Radio (“Dite a vostra”)
•Newspaper articles, short documentaries, Regional TV special
5) School contexts
Apprenticeship in two different schools
oral and written practice
2 Bilingual SchoolsPedicroce:
Single, multi-age classroom of 12 children: 3d through 5th grade (8-11 years old)
Village school
Teacher: Christophe Limongi-
Third year of work on call and response
Bonafedi:
27 children in 3d grade (8 yrs old)
City school
Teacher: Sonia Foti
First year of work on song, poetry and call and response
Pedicroce: typical process
The teacher launches a “call” or the class receives a call or a response poem from the other school
The content of the first poem is explained and discussed
Ideas collected for the responseThe children propose one or two lines orallyCollective work on form (the feet) and meaning
The lines that are chosen are written on the board
The final product is sung by the children (work on pronunciation)
Recording (video and/or audio)
A chjama......the callContext: English teacher’s comment that homework was not done over last 2 weeks. Teacher improv taking children lightly to task.
Teacher
Di ciò ch'ete fattu oghje
Un ci vole à esse fieri
Perchè vi site scurdati
Di fà i vostri duveri
E aghju da ghjunghje à crede
Chì voi site sumeri
For what you’ve done today
You have no reason to be proud
Because you forgot
To do your homework
And I’ve got to come to the conclusion
That you are donkeys
the kids’ responsecreated orally as whole class activity with teacher scaffolding, written on board, performed from text
Noi ùn simu sumeri
Perchè simu intelligenti
Avemu da travaglià
Seranu bellu mumenti
Averemu belle note
D’un ùn ci sera cuntenti
We aren’t donkeys
Because we are intelligent
We are going to work
And times will be good
We will get good grades
We won’t be satisfied with just one
Their own favorite line: “our heads will explode”
Site voi u prufessore
Eppo noi i zitelli
Sè ci sò troppu duveri
Spluseranu i cerbelli
E scambiaremu di scola
Faleremu in Fulelli
You are the teacher
And we are the students
If there is too much homework
Our brains will explode
And we will change schools
We’ll go down to Fulelli
collective work: the exploding brains
Bonafedi: typical process
• First poem is written out
• When the response is received– Read/sung by the
teacher– Work on meaning,
to make sure comprehension is complete
– Collection of ideas for response orally
• A text written by the teacher (based on children’s suggestions) is presented to them orally
• Children’s participation (in order of difficulty)– Given a text with blanks,
Find the missing words (from a list)
– Given a text with blanks, Propose words or phrases that are missing (without a list)
– Proposals for modification of text, or of other themes
Bonafedi, cont.
• Writing
• Reading aloud
• Rehearsing (work on pronunciation) and recording
• Example of work “find the missing words” from poem sent by other school
Worksheet: choose the right word to complete the line
Noi simu tutti Corsi
Eppo ancu ______(paesani, acelli, Fulelli)
Un falemu in Aiacciu
Perchè site troppu _______ (strani, bravi, maiò )
E ùn avete capitu
Chì state troppu ________ (luntani, strani, umani)
We are all Corsicans
And also _____(villagers, birds, Fulelli)
We aren’t coming down to Ajaccio
Because you are too ______
(strange, nice, big)
And you haven’t understood
That you are too _____(far away....strange...human)
Fill in the blanks with poem from the
other class
scanning the lines
• Ci sò parechji castagne
• Nant'à u nostru caminu
• Quandu ne cuglieremu duie
• Ci femu un bellu spuntinu
cuglierEMu duie vs.
cuglieremu DUie
• There are lots of chestnuts
• On our road
• When we collect a few
• They make a nice snack
The encounter at the museum5 June 2012
• Exchange of the calls and responses (all the poetry created) face-to-face
• Workshops “finding the words”
• Traditional instrument workshop
• Workshop listening to call and response poetry from museum archives
• 3 improvisational poets invited: performance “live”
Exchange (live) of all calls and responses
Follow-on activities: Pedicroce• Radio call in: Homework, Exchange with other school
(children taking on both parts)
• Preparation of video slide show: "What is the Call and Response?"
• Lozzi Poetry Festival (June 8)– Performance of Homework Call and Response: one child taking
part of teacher; the other of the students– Active listening and participation during presentation on
poetry genres.
– High appreciation of walking tour past poets' houses "We liked it because we're poets too.”
– Post-festival listening and evaluation of Tuscan contrasto genre: analysis of feet, tempo, rhyme, ease.
Follow-on Bonafedi• Preparation of audio recording (for Cooperative Education
website) on poetry forms they learned that year.
• Participation in "La Saint-Jean des Poètes" Poetry festival (June 22) – Publication of poetry (including Call and Response) in Coop Ed
book.– Exchange with (non-bilingual) school that worked on
Alexandrine verse.• Each school explains their practice to the other (small group) and
tries out the other school's genre.• Small group work: despite partner schoolchildren's relatively lower
competence in Corsican, some groups embark on creation of Corsican poems. Others rearrange previously written poems in Corsican.
• Shared performance "tip" towards Call and Response genre.• Spontaneous sung performances of fragments and entire sequences
from exchange with Pedicroce.
Children's uptake and creative
practice• Appropriation and recirculation of song/poetry
cycle (spontaneous)
• Spontaneous improvisation of genre...in French... on the bus home
• Spontaneous improvisation in Corsican, sometimes fragments--among friends, on playground, at home.
• Personal poetry notebooks--home-based literacy practice
• Poems written for friends, parents, siblings
• "being a poet" and "improvising" distinguished, but seen as a continuum and as a progression
Points of interest– LINGUISTIC LEARNING– Pronunciation and adaptation of pronunciation to the
demands of reading aloud with the correct number of feet• Rule: 7 feet OK if last syllable is accented (campà; ballò;
stà)
– Elision (corresponding with spoken practice; also sometimes going further) • Example: Un ci vole à esse fieri• D'a nostra muntagna alta
– Exploitation of vowel combinations (dipthongization/monopthongization) • Example: Chì voi site sumeri ("voi" = 2)
• Site voi u prufessore ("voi" = 1)– Grammar: agility with conjugation, singular/plural noun
and verb forms in quick service of rhyme– Phraseology-intonation
...
• Linguistic learning, cont.
• Vocabulary: reinforcement of old; acquisition of new.
• Notion of repertoire: active seekers of words for rhyming
• Learning of forms and rules of traditional poetic genre
• Rhymes, rhythm, musicality
• creativity—shared esthetics
...• Other outcomes/forms of learning
• Legitimate peripheral participation in expert practice
• Familiarization with the kinds of knowledge needed to improvise– Anticipate the end of the verse at the beginning– Active listening– Classification/repertoire of rhymes (from less to
more difficult), themes, phrases
• The experience of mastery related to a linguistic practice: appropriation of the language
• Movement between literacy and orality
• The value of poetry in everyday life : "every day we talk; the call and response is like a conversation with someone else" "You can write poetry about anything, at any moment. You can be inspired at any moment. That's why I carry a notebook and pen, just like our teacher."– Personal: poetry accompanying life events– Exchange with others
• Poets as cultural references: a practice that is both historical and living/modern
• Cultural and poetic content (continuity)– participation in a genre with historical, cultural depth– connection to practitioners (poets) past and present– self-projection as poets into the future
• Social meaning
• Learning the “spirit” of the poetic joust: “macagne” (teasing)--but "not going too far”– "how far" related to relationship "Now that we've
met them, we could probably go a bit further, but before, you don't know how they'll take it. “
• Exchange: a practice that requires two or more people– Between poets– Between generations– Between teachers and children– Between children
larger issues• One of the challenges of bilingual
schools: make the language live beyond the walls of the schools
• Corsican not just as an object of school learning
• “They learn through play” (teacher’s quote)
• Minority languages as social projects– Collaborative work: creating
something with others, using the Corsican language
– Linguistic competencies that are both individual and collective
• Remaining tensions (language ideological)
• poetry as “learned” or as a “gift”
• Language: Identity link as “essential” (iconic/natural) vs. sociocultural and political
• levels and types of competence needed for legitimacy
Conditions
• Histories of entextualization, decontextualization, recontextualization of the genre– “revival” of 80s: cultural project
• documentation• socialization/transmission
– legitimate peripheral participation
“hidden” histories of writing
Trajectories of social actors
Knowledge production in the collaborative
project• Conditions: legitimacy
• Sources of expertise/authority
• products?