From: Angie Miles <readingam_at_prodigy.net>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:26:55 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings All

I just wanted to chime in with a comment about recitation.  Though it is not reading aloud in the truest sense, it is performance of written work, s hared aloud.  It seems to me it is becoming a lost art in some ways.

When I was a child, my mother had my siblings and me perform in front of gr oups regularly... at community events, at church, and so forth.  This usu ally involved singing but it almost always included some sort of recitation , as well.  Similarly, my more veteran elementary teachers required mem orization and recitation of poetry.  It seemed like a chore at the time, but these verses I still remember and appreciate with fondness today.

I attended a parent meeting at a low-performing, urban school last year. An elderly man, one of the regular volunteers there, stood up and in a com manding, resonant voice began to recite several stanzas of a motivational p oem I had not heard before.  The audience was completely mesmerized, tran sfixed until he released them.  I think that along with reading poetry al oud there is this opportunity for a derivative experience of memorizing, in ternalizing and performing prose... but especially poetry... in ways that k eep the form alive and well in learning communities today.

Best Angie Miles www.happyreading.org
Received on Fri 22 Apr 2011 08:26:55 AM CDT