Blackout poetry is a popular subgenre of found poetry where writers create their own poems by deliberately crossing out unwanted words from a single existing text (Hilbun, 2015; Ladenheim, 2013). As a teacher educator, I engaged in practitioner research to illustrate how Design Thinking as an andragogical approach helped reconceptualize the teaching and learning trajectory of P.E and Arabic trainee-teachers for a Communication and Soft Skills module for English in a B.Ed programme in Mauritius. Upon demand for more creativity and innovation in the communicative sessions by the trainee-teachers, blackout poetry was introduced to develop coherence and cohesion in writing and tonal inflection in speaking. Data collection tools included a word cloud, an open-ended questionnaire, and a focus group discussion. Findings via thematic analysis reveal that most participants felt and believed that blackout poetry was effective in developing their confidence in speaking especially when using natural and artificial intonation to sustain the interest of audiences. Participants also believed that blackout poetry helped them write more coherently and cohesively which had a ripple effect on their functional writing. Interestingly, findings also accentuate that blackout poetry in the communicative sessions contributed to developing their skills in reading for understanding and appreciation. This study suggests that there is not only a demand but there is scope for the use of different literary genres to be infused in Communication Skills modules for teacher training, especially in contexts such as Mauritius where exposure to English proficiency is taught in traditional ways. This study, therefore, extends the use of the Language-based theory (Lazar, 1993) from pedagogy to its use in andragogical contexts such as teacher education.
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Keywords: Design Thinking, Blackout Poetry, teacher education, tonal inflection, coherence, and cohesion
Bibliography
Hilbun, J., Abbas, J., Koh, K., Irvin, V., Rhinesmith, C., Dettmann, M., & Gavigan, K. (2015). Find Poetry: Using Found Poems in School and Public Libraries to Enhance Student Creativity and Writing. The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 6(4)
Ladenheim, Melissa, "Engaging Honors Students through Newspaper Blackout Poetry" (2014). Honors in Practice -- Online Archive. 206. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nchchip/206
Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and language teaching: A guide for teachers and trainers. Cambridge University Press.
