AMEN 4 Youth

AMEN 4 Youth, LLC prepares your child for success!

WHAT IS S.L.A.M.Lyrical Education

AMEN 4 Youth, LLC is proudly presenting a highly innovative and exciting English Language Arts Alternative Literacy Curriculum titled S.L.A.M. (Spoken Lyrics with an Academic Mission). S.L.A.M., also known as Lyrical Education, integrates ELA instruction with a high packed engagement of Lyrical Instruction using a technique called L.I.P.P (Lyrical-writing In Performance Poetry), which builds written and oratorical skills while drawing from Spoken Word writings and performance Poetry. This technique simultaneously teaches students English Language Art skills, building upon a composite set of written and oral language components. These skills and the  rigor they induce prepares students to be able to Present knowledge and Ideas, retain information, and write and rehearse for oral presentation while collaborating with others.  LIPP was created by award-winning poet, author, motivational speaker and education activist, Hakim Nathaniel Crampton, whose ground breaking curriculum, S.L.A.M. (Spoken Lyrics with an Academic Mission) is currently being used by several teachers within Jackson Public Schools, as well as Summer school programming in Harper Woods, Michigan. Hakim created SLAM to address the growing needs of diverse populations of students falling behind in literacy skill sets in both reading and writing.

SLAM Lyrical Education uses its own Curriculum Workbooks designed to build the requisite Literacy skills meeting State Educational Standards as well as Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the English Language Arts (ELA). SLAM is available to students grades 4-12 and freshman College undergrads. SLAM offers three curriculum workbooks, each workbook is specific to grade level engagement and literacy outcomes. These ranges cover Grades 4, 5 & 6 and 7, 8 & 9 and finally grades 10-12 and first and second year College Communications and English students. 

In Workbook 1, S.L.A.M. An Alternative Educational Model & Workbook Building Literacy Skills in English Language Arts, students learn 10 major Lessons that are adaptable across grade levels 10-12 and College as well as adaptable across class subjects. This is met by building upon the Literacy skills and content retention needed at those grade levels, focusing on Language concepts and components, Vocabulary and Syntax, the organization of Ideas, and Reading Comprehension. Workbook 1 contains Reviews, Fill-in the Blanks, Literary Word identifications, Extracting Literary Words from Prose, Vocabulary Builders, Biography composition, Speech Making Preparation and lastly, space for the students to compose their final written Lyrical Dissertation or Slam. 

Because SLAM is adaptable at each of the various grade levels, Teachers are able to assimilate their grade level curriculum with the SLAM methods. As a curriculum, Workbook 1 was constructed and designed to match each of the 10 Lessons with grade level expectations ranging in areas of Reading, Writing, Research, Textual Critique, and other Language Arts, such as Oratory, Theatrical Expression, and Stage Performance. For ELA Teachers, this allows them to co-relate both State and or the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and seamlessly integrate SLAM with their classroom course work. To further this goal, SLAM is designed to allow Teachers the adaptability to implement the workbook instruction as an in class assignment that allows them to produce an Academic Poetry Slam or APS. APS is a classroom competition among students that gives them a chance to SLAM an assignment for a grade. Hence, the gist of the title SLAM! Our goal is to teach students how to incorporate Lyrical writing and oral traditions into classroom coursework, giving them a poetic and prose mastery over educational materials.

Workbook 2, Lyrical Education: Students Who Use Spoken Lyrics with an Academic Mission, providing for grades 4-6, is a practical application of Workbook 1, offering teachers an incredible writing engagement lesson for students that deal directly with topics of immense importance at the elementary level. This Workbook was composed with a select group of 5th grade students from McCulloch Academy of Jackson, Michigan whose writings appear in this book as part of the Topic lessons. Topics included are Bullying, Childhood Health & Welfare (drugs, childhood obesity & child abuse), and Gun and gang violence. There are 5 Lessons in this book, each composed of Fact Sheets for each topic, followed by vocabulary builders with definition and examples that students will discuss and define referenced from the Fact Sheets as well as from the Poems by the 5th grade students who contributed to the composition of this Workbook. Lastly, each Lesson is concluded with space for current students to compose their own poems or essays. 

Workbook 3, Hip Hopology 101: A Student’s Guide to Exploring the History, Art, Influence & Politics of Urban Culture, is Textbook formatted and designed for grades 10-12 and College students. Hip Hopology 101 is a classroom course textbook examining the historic origin, evolution and influence of Hip Hop culture. This textbook will be of use and value to students in both high school and college who will find this book to be both, a rudimentary and explanative introduction to Hip Hop as an expanding and globally significant culture as opposed to it’s mere musical ascetic.The scope of this text reviews many of the sociological questions Hip Hop is confronted by, including its vitality within American popular music, it’s significance and influence on the global market, and importantly it’s own sense of value and role within black and urban American culture.  Review sections follow each chapter with a summation of the main points followed by key vocabulary terms and an outline for students to compose an essay, speech or SLAM for each chapter.

Workbook 5, Lyrical Exercises in English Language Arts: Composition Workbook/Vocabulary & Reading Comprehension. This workbook is designed for grades 6-8 but can be used for grades 5-12. The scope of this workbook covers key General Education subjects, such as Technology, Sociology, Science, Research, etc., designed to engage students in reading comprehension exercises using Lyrical Composition. Each Lesson is prefaced with Subject description and Key Vocabulary builders that are then followed by reading comprehension exercises for each General Education subject. 

Both SLAM Workbooks 1-3 use Performance Art techniques as the medium to build these skills and assist students in acquiring the essential language  knowledge that will help them demonstrate communication independence, build strong content knowledge, respond to varying demands of audience, comprehend and critique, value evidence, use technology strategically, and understand other perspectives and cultures. This form of rigor and outcome thereby helps a student build confidence, demonstrate mastery over a subject, apply various methods of communication while developing a broader world awareness. SLAM is great for in-classroom integration with course subject material and content as well as ideal for after-school programming and other enrichment classes.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Our most vulnerable in society has always been our children. Child health data from the Center For Disease Control has shown that American children are at risk in a number of areas such as childhood obesity, abuse and neglect, infant mortality, gun violence, juvenile delinquency and recently, rates in low educational performance has become a national crisis. Health care specialists indicate that most of these areas can be lowered through using consistent intervention steps in education.

Education seems to be the key in any given area of concern that affects the quality of life of all people. We begin educating our nation as early as three and four years old. We have a very wide ranging pre-school approach across the country and one would think that our children would be thoroughly educated on key issues that affect their health and welfare, right? Evidently no! Somewhere along the line we’re missing the mark. 

In the State of Michigan there is a Healthy Schools Program that is leading transformations of conditions and systems that lead to healthier children, focusing on changing school menus to include more fruits and vegetables and encouraging more schools to engage in daily fitness and exercise. Michigan is the 18th most obese state in the US for children. It is reported that 32.6% of Michigan children are obese. That number doesn’t include those considered over weight. No wonder then, that Michigan ranks the 10th most obese state in the US for adults. This indicates that obesity rises after childhood and into adulthood.

Today’s children are even growing up in what has been termed “a culture of violence.” In Detroit nearly three dozen children under the age of 18 have been killed on average since 2000. That’s nearly 500 children murdered in just over a decade. Students as early as kindergarten can explain what a homicide is and perhaps identify someone either from their family or from within their neighborhood that has been killed. Even teen dating violence affects children as young as eleven years old. Violence has become an epidemic that has affected our most vulnerable in society: kids. Bullying is nowadays an everyday facet of children’s upbringing. We have become a generation of “mean.” 

Gangs and drugs have infiltrated the lives of our children as well. Even pre-teenage boys have been known to form and join street gangs. Children have admitted to smoking cigarettes and trying illicit drugs as early as 8 and 9 years of age. One of the indicators of children falling into these self destructive behaviors have been identified as a lack of parental involvement and home discipline. Too, homes that are abusive and have incidents of violence or drug use are environments where children ultimately become exposed to a lack of guidance. In this kind of setting kids are more likely to join a gang, use drugs and even exhibit violence or other aggressive acts of behavior.

It is for these reasons that I work with students and created S.L.A.M. Lyrical Education. I believe we must become more involved with invention as early as possible. Parents must be encouraged to not only seek out checks and balances within their own home, but they too must become one with the school system. Our schools need to be welcoming  parents into the classroom. Education is not the sole purview of schools, but rather it is a joint responsibility of both parents and teachers. Together they can mutually provide the essential instruction, love and guidance children need while growing up and becoming adults. 

”As exciting as it was watching students become enchanted with the writing process, the most critical part of our experience with Hakim was the work he did showing students how to translate and access instructional materials using his art form. Hakim would show students a passage from a text, pull out important concepts, then demonstrate how this information could be transformed into spoken word, poetry, or song—all easily memorized, all more relevant to today’s children. My students became more engaged in the learning process because they felt they had some control over how they learned, and it was fun for them.”

- Julie Baker, McCulloch Academy

“Through S.L.A.M., Mr. Crampton has developed a living format comprised of a compilation of English Language Arts Centered learning experiences. The curriculum and the process Mr. Crampton uses has the innate potential of creating learning experiences that provide the rigor needed to develop students cognitive capacities.”

- Anthony Coffie, Sharp Park Academy

WHAT OTHER SERVICES DOES A.M.E.N. 4 YOUTH, LLC OFFER