Originally published in TEACH Magazine, July/August 2018 Issue
By Meagan Gillmore
Dale Mar has always known her English students can explore topics with great insight. They “blow her mind” regularly, she says. However, she was surprised when two students’ spoken-word poems landed them a personal visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their Grade 8 graduation trip to Ottawa.
Mar teaches gifted students in the Durham District School Board in Ontario. This year some of her students participated in a spoken-word poetry contest. Two poems caught the attention of a parent in the audience—the local Member of Parliament. She told the students that the Prime Minister needed to hear their work, especially a poem that reworked the lyrics of “O Canada” to address the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, and arranged a meeting.
Meagan Gillmore is a freelance writer in Toronto, ON.
