Spoken word institute again offered to educators

This summer, Urban Word NYC and the Hip-Hop Association team with the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Office of Multicultural Initiatives (OMAI) to offer a weeklong program for teachers, educators, community leaders and education students to learn the best practices in hip-hop and spoken word pedagogy.

Winner of the 2007 North American Association of Summer Sessions "Creative and Innovative Program Award," the second annual Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Teacher and Community Leader Training Institute brings together the leading educators, professors, emcees and activists using the media of spoken word and hip-hop as relevant, dynamic and necessary educational tools to engage students across multidisciplinary curricula. The institute will be held Monday-Friday, June 18-22, at UW–Madison.

Each day, institute participants will learn proven, hands-on techniques that will help them to develop lesson plans and strengthen their course study, as well as create a platform from which they will understand the scope of hip-hop history, culture and politics. The night programming consists of lecturers and performers who will synthesize the day trainings with effective strategies and cutting-edge multicultural educational approaches.

Morning and afternoon sessions will be aimed at giving course participants the tools to engage the 21st century classroom. Each day follows a theme that will further strengthen participants’ knowledge and understanding of spoken word and hip-hop culture, politics and pedagogy.

The evening lecture and performance series will bring the learning back from the day sessions to illuminate the theory and the praxis that educators will take back to their classrooms.

The closing night’s session will feature First Wave Jump Off: "From Old School to New School: An Intergenerational Dialogue" with the pioneer of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc, Baruch "Baba" Israel, K-Swift, Queen GodIs and performances by First Wave students.

For the institute application and registration information, contact Karin Silet at silet@education.wisc.edu or at (608) 265-9568. Space is limited.