What were the consequences of the Industrial Revolution? I was tasked with creating a slam poem about this very topic. I knew nothing about the Industrial Revolution, and nothing about slam poetry. How would I accomplish this task? What process would I have to go through?

In our recent Humanities project, we explored the Industrial Revolution and created a slam poem about its consequences. The driving question was “How can slam poetry help us connect to issues?” We presented our poems to our peers and teacher. This project was all about process, and the steps it takes to create a thoughtful piece of media.

To start the project we learned about the Industrial Revolution and how to identify cause and consequence. We created two graphic organizers. One focused on the steam engine, while the other explored three separate innovations. You can read them here and here.

We chose a topic to focus our poem on, and wrote a formal paragraph about it. I chose to write my paragraph about the environmental consequences of the Industrial Revolution, because that was the topic that most interested me. My paragraph went through multiple revisions before reaching the level of quality I was hoping for, and I was really thankful for the critique. Click here to read my final paragraph.

We studied multiple slam poems, and decided what our criteria would be for an effective one. Our next step was to begin writing. My poem went though many revisions. I asked my peers for critique, and implemented it over and over again. After I was happy with it, I practiced it, and finally read it to my class. This is my performance:

This project taught me a lot about the importance of critique and revisions. When professional writers write media, their work goes through countless revisions before being considered complete. It is important to ask other people for their stance on your work, because it can make a huge difference. When creating work, it always takes more than one step to complete, and it is important to consider the process.