Alexandra Jaffe California State University Long Beach ajaffe@csulb

1. Old tools in a new repertoire: poetry, exchange and a changing speaker community in Corsican bilingual schools Alexandra Jaffe California State University Long Beach ajaffe@csulb.edu

2. Focus: Performance, Representation, Creativity, Circulation: in and out of school • Genres moving across time and social scales • How are "old” genres of cultural and linguistic creative practice being transformed and recontextualized through being used in and circulated through new spaces with “new” social actors? • How do new media and channels of circulation • play a role in socialization • shape practice and meaning • What new • indexicalities • subjectivities/forms of expertise/legitimacy • What implications for notions of • legitimate speaker of the minority language? • a minority language "community of practice

3. Bilingual education: some of the challenging goals • Promote use of language by children outside of school • pleasure, not just obligation • Draw the society in to the school and its project • Create Communities of Practice in which new speakers will be recognized as legitimate “school-based”/academic vs “traditional” knowledge and competence Create “new speakers” • bridge the gap between the cultural and identity value of Corsica and the linguistic competencies of learners • Give children the tools and motivation for an “appropriation” of the language as part of their personal identity projects • Link the personal to a collective social project Authenticity and Authority

4. Chjam’è rispondi: Call and Response • Traditional improvisational poetic "joust” • Form: 6 lines with 8 feet • Rhyme schemes: • ABCBDB • ABABAB • ABCBCC • Sung (the melody or “versu” varies by region and poet) • First poet launches a verse; second responds immediately • Ideally, repeating rhyme of last line; in all cases, responding to theme • “Macagna”—humorous/teasing key • Esthetic criteria: Cleverness, humor, form, vocabulary

5. CIRCULATION: traditional and new media circuits and contexts 1) traditional context: informal gatherings, cafes, festivals, etc. (Teacher) Christophe Limongi

6. ... 2) traditional context modified with formalized staging: Poets “on stage” for an audience (cultural “recovery” and “revistalization”; professionalization?)

7. .. 3) written online, in Corsican-language forums New locus for both apprenticeship and exchange Linked to in-person events (“pre- and post-game”) as well as independent of them • Shift: writing precedes oral practice • Young Teacher-Poet’s apprenticeship process the Chjamairispondi has as its subject the simple things in life. The first person who sings attacks and the other responds.Shall we give it a try? now it’s your turn to respond and you will see that you will have to search for new words to respond. It’s a nice exercise.

8. ... 4) Media (traditional and new) and Internet circulation • most/all in-person meet-ups are videotaped and posted online • poets engage in both syncronous and asynchronous exchanges in text, email • Radio (“Dite a vostra”) • Newspaper articles, short documentaries, Regional TV special • 5) School contexts • Apprenticeship in two different schools • oral and written practice

9. 2 Bilingual Schools • Pedicroce: • Single, multi-age classroom of 12 children: 3d through 5th grade (8-11 years old) • Village school • Teacher: Christophe Limongi- • Third year of work on call and response • Bonafedi: • 27 children in 3d grade (8 yrs old) • City school • Teacher: Sonia Foti • First year of work on song, poetry and call and response

11. Pedicroce: typical process • The teacher launches a “call” or the class receives a call or a response poem from the other school • The content of the first poem is explained and discussed • Ideas collected for the response • The children propose one or two lines orally • Collective work on form (the feet) and meaning • The lines that are chosen are written on the board • The final product is sung by the children (work on pronunciation) • Recording (video and/or audio)

12. A chjama......the callContext: English teacher’s comment that homework was not done over last 2 weeks. Teacher improv taking children lightly to task. • Teacher Di ciò ch'ete fattu oghje Un ci vole à esse fieri Perchè vi site scurdati Di fà i vostri duveri E aghju da ghjunghje à crede Chì voi site sumeri For what you’ve done today You have no reason to be proud Because you forgot To do your homework And I’ve got to come to the conclusion That you are donkeys

13. the kids’ responsecreated orally as whole class activity with teacher scaffolding, written on board, performed from text Noi ùn simu sumeri Perchè simu intelligenti Avemu da travaglià Seranu bellu mumenti Averemu belle note D’un ùn ci sera cuntenti We aren’t donkeys Because we are intelligent We are going to work And times will be good We will get good grades We won’t be satisfied with just one

14. Their own favorite line: “our heads will explode” Site voi u prufessore Eppo noi i zitelli Sè ci sò troppu duveri Spluseranu i cerbelli E scambiaremu di scola Faleremu in Fulelli You are the teacher And we are the students If there is too much homework Our brains will explode And we will change schools We’ll go down to Fulelli

15. collective work: the exploding brains

16. Bonafedi: typical process • First poem is written out • When the response is received • Read/sung by the teacher • Work on meaning, to make sure comprehension is complete • Collection of ideas for response orally • A text written by the teacher (based on children’s suggestions) is presented to them orally • Children’s participation (in order of difficulty) • Given a text with blanks, Find the missing words (from a list) • Given a text with blanks, Propose words or phrases that are missing (without a list) • Proposals for modification of text, or of other themes

17. Bonafedi, cont. • Writing • Reading aloud • Rehearsing (work on pronunciation) and recording • Example of work “find the missing words” from poem sent by other school

18. Worksheet: choose the right word to complete the line Noi simu tutti Corsi Eppo ancu ______(paesani, acelli, Fulelli) Un falemu in Aiacciu Perchè site troppu _______ (strani, bravi, maiò ) E ùn avete capitu Chì state troppu ________ (luntani, strani, umani) We are all Corsicans And also _____(villagers, birds, Fulelli) We aren’t coming down to Ajaccio Because you are too ______ (strange, nice, big) And you haven’t understood That you are too _____(far away....strange...human)

19. Fill in the blanks with poem from the other class

20. scanning the lines • Ci sò parechji castagne • Nant'à u nostru caminu • Quandu ne cuglieremu duie • Ci femu un bellu spuntinu cuglierEMu duie vs. cuglieremu DUie • There are lots of chestnuts • On our road • When we collect a few • They make a nice snack

21. The encounter at the museum5 June 2012 • Exchange of the calls and responses (all the poetry created) face-to-face • Workshops “finding the words” • Traditional instrument workshop • Workshop listening to call and response poetry from museum archives • 3 improvisational poets invited: performance “live”

22. Exchange (live) of all calls and responses

23. Follow-on activities: Pedicroce • Radio call in: Homework, Exchange with other school (children taking on both parts) • Preparation of video slide show: "What is the Call and Response?" • Lozzi Poetry Festival (June 8) • Performance of Homework Call and Response: one child taking part of teacher; the other of the students • Active listening and participation during presentation on poetry genres. • High appreciation of walking tour past poets' houses "We liked it because we're poets too.” • Post-festival listening and evaluation of Tuscan contrasto genre: analysis of feet, tempo, rhyme, ease.

24. Follow-on Bonafedi • Preparation of audio recording (for Cooperative Education website) on poetry forms they learned that year. • Participation in "La Saint-Jean des Poètes" Poetry festival (June 22) • Publication of poetry (including Call and Response) in Coop Ed book. • Exchange with (non-bilingual) school that worked on Alexandrine verse. • Each school explains their practice to the other (small group) and tries out the other school's genre. • Small group work: despite partner schoolchildren's relatively lower competence in Corsican, some groups embark on creation of Corsican poems. Others rearrange previously written poems in Corsican. • Shared performance "tip" towards Call and Response genre. • Spontaneous sung performances of fragments and entire sequences from exchange with Pedicroce.

25. Children's uptake and creative practice • Appropriation and recirculation of song/poetry cycle (spontaneous) • Spontaneous improvisation of genre...in French... on the bus home • Spontaneous improvisation in Corsican, sometimes fragments--among friends, on playground, at home. • Personal poetry notebooks--home-based literacy practice • Poems written for friends, parents, siblings • "being a poet" and "improvising" distinguished, but seen as a continuum and as a progression

26. Points of interest • LINGUISTIC LEARNING • Pronunciation and adaptation of pronunciation to the demands of reading aloud with the correct number of feet • Rule: 7 feet OK if last syllable is accented (campà; ballò; stà) • Elision (corresponding with spoken practice; also sometimes going further) • Example: Un ci vole à esse fieri • D'a nostra muntagna alta • Exploitation of vowel combinations (dipthongization/monopthongization) • Example: Chì voi site sumeri ("voi" = 2) • Site voi u prufessore ("voi" = 1) • Grammar: agility with conjugation, singular/plural noun and verb forms in quick service of rhyme • Phraseology-intonation

27. ... • Linguistic learning, cont. • Vocabulary: reinforcement of old; acquisition of new. • Notion of repertoire: active seekers of words for rhyming • Learning of forms and rules of traditional poetic genre • Rhymes, rhythm, musicality • creativity—shared esthetics

28. ... • Other outcomes/forms of learning • Legitimate peripheral participation in expert practice • Familiarization with the kinds of knowledge needed to improvise • Anticipate the end of the verse at the beginning • Active listening • Classification/repertoire of rhymes (from less to more difficult), themes, phrases • The experience of mastery related to a linguistic practice: appropriation of the language

29. Movement between literacy and orality • The value of poetry in everyday life : "every day we talk; the call and response is like a conversation with someone else" "You can write poetry about anything, at any moment. You can be inspired at any moment. That's why I carry a notebook and pen, just like our teacher." • Personal: poetry accompanying life events • Exchange with others • Poets as cultural references: a practice that is both historical and living/modern • Cultural and poetic content (continuity) • participation in a genre with historical, cultural depth • connection to practitioners (poets) past and present • self-projection as poets into the future

30. Social meaning • Learning the “spirit” of the poetic joust: “macagne” (teasing)--but "not going too far” • "how far" related to relationship "Now that we've met them, we could probably go a bit further, but before, you don't know how they'll take it. “ • Exchange: a practice that requires two or more people • Between poets • Between generations • Between teachers and children • Between children

31. larger issues • One of the challenges of bilingual schools: make the language live beyond the walls of the schools • Corsican not just as an object of school learning • “They learn through play” (teacher’s quote) • Minority languages as social projects • Collaborative work: creating something with others, using the Corsican language • Linguistic competencies that are both individual and collective • Remaining tensions (language ideological) • poetry as “learned” or as a “gift” • Language: Identity link as “essential” (iconic/natural) vs. sociocultural and political • levels and types of competence needed for legitimacy

32. Conditions • Histories of entextualization, decontextualization, recontextualization of the genre • “revival” of 80s: cultural project • documentation • socialization/transmission • legitimate peripheral participation “hidden” histories of writing Trajectories of social actors

33. Knowledge production in the collaborative project • Conditions: legitimacy • Sources of expertise/authority • products?