Old tools in a new repertoire: poetry, exchange and a changing speaker community in Corsican bilingual schoolsAlexandra JaffeCalifornia State University Long Beachajaffe@csulb.edu

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?