Give Me a Mic and a Stage: A Case for Slam Poetry, Identity, and Socio-Emotional Learning in the High School Classroom

Many research companies in the past decade have been interested in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). In particular, these companies often look at how a lack of SEL education in schooling affects the ability for students to learn and later develop essential skills such as identifying emotions, positive goal setting, decision-making, and many other crucial socio-emotional skills that are often taken for granted. This paper seeks to find and discuss how SEL intersects with teaching a slam poetry unit in a high school sophomore English classroom. Through looking at the connections between slam poetry and SEL, this paper argues that teaching identity-driven units can meaningfully integrate SEL skills into the classroom that focus on an exploration of identity and the self. However, the implementation of these identity-focused SEL skills isn't limited to solely the English classroom; educators across disciplines should also consider how to integrate SEL into their instruction.