Aaron Jones

American Graduate: Poetic Justice Part 2 - Graduation Day

From: WUNC
Series: American Graduate
Length: 10:23

WUNC is a part of the American Graduate Project. It's a public media initiative looking at the drop out crisis across the country. As a part of this project we commissioned slam poets Kane Smego and Will McInnerney to teach a writing workshop at Northern High School in Durham. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: American Graduate: Poetic Justice Part 2 - ...
From: WUNC

Image_small WUNC is a part of the American Graduate Project. It's a public media initiative looking at the drop out crisis across the country. As a part of this project we commissioned slam poets Kane Smego and Will McInnerney to teach a writing workshop at Northern High School in Durham. Over the last 10 weeks, Kane and Will taught a group of students how to use poetry to tell their own stories. Today is graduation day at Northern—and three of the students from our workshop will be receiving their diplomas.

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Caption: Students from a writing workshop at Northern High School in Durham

American Graduate: Poetic Justice Part 1 (05:19)
From: WUNC

American Graduate: A poetry program in Durham is using rhythm and rhyme to keep kids from making the choice to drop out of school.

Special: The Monti American Graduate (59:01)
From: WUNC

The Monti - American Graduate Special is an hour of true stories from the front lines of North Carolina’s high school drop out crisis.

Piece Description

WUNC is a part of the American Graduate Project. It's a public media initiative looking at the drop out crisis across the country. As a part of this project we commissioned slam poets Kane Smego and Will McInnerney to teach a writing workshop at Northern High School in Durham. Over the last 10 weeks, Kane and Will taught a group of students how to use poetry to tell their own stories. Today is graduation day at Northern—and three of the students from our workshop will be receiving their diplomas.

Broadcast History

WUNC

Transcript

Will McInerney: Dontá, Fontezia, and Aaron, three of the young poets from our program have a lot to share and are ready for the challenge. This afternoon is graduation, and all three will be crossing the stage. But this was not an easy journey, or an expected outcome. In spoken word, they found a way to channel the experience.

Dontá McCormick: Runaway train on route 16, I repeat, runaway teen on year 16......If you listen to the iron there’s a scrapes against the…I was first at Southern, then I got kicked out of Southern for some things that I should have never done.

Will McInerney: That’s Dontá; he’s 20 years old and graduating high school today. For most people, 4 years in high school is enough to make you never want to be in a classroom again. When you have spent 6 years between 2 schools and you are 2 years older than all of your peers, dropping out definitely seems like the answer...
Read the full transcript

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

WUNC is a part of the American Graduate Project. It's a public media initiative looking at the drop out crisis across the country. As a part of this project we commissioned slam poets Kane Smego and Will McInnerney to teach a writing workshop at Northern High School in Durham. Over the last 10 weeks, Kane and Will taught a group of students how to use poetry to tell their own stories. Today is graduation day at Northern—and three of the students from our workshop will be receiving their diplomas.

OUTRO:

Kane Smego and Will McInnerney are Directors of the youth poetry organization Sacrificial Poets. Their work at Northern High School in Durham is a part of WUNC's American Graduate Project. It's made possible in part by GlaxoSmithKline, The Goodnight Educational Foundation, The James M Bryan Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the contributions of WUNC listeners