Rationale
My rationale for developing a unit centered on biography and storytelling is rather multilayered. On one level, the form (or container) of biography gives a student a defined space for him to explore a life outside of himself. Many youth are raising themselves in homes and communities that offer few boundaries or rules. If there is one thing that kids crave, regardless of their socio-economic condition, it is the safety of a recurring expectation. And for so many kids, the only expectation they have of themselves is self-preservation, and the only rules they abide by are ones they have constructed for themselves. At a very young age, kids must make a developmental leap in the formation of their identity that they are not equipped to understand. Because there is no GPS for this skill, children will often construct a shell around themselves in order to protect their identity. And if this shell is not cracked or at least acknowledged by adults in an educational setting, that un-channeled life and story becomes toxic and potentially explosive. In Children in a Violent Society, a collection of essays edited by Joy D. Osofsky, Marans and Adelman write, "When there is no one available to listen, children are alone with the distress and disorganization that so often follows their close encounters with interpersonal violence. On their own, attempts to recover from over- whelming fear, uncertainty, and helplessness may be at a very high price to children's developmental potential as well as to the communities that have been unable to protect or support them". (1) The empowerment associated with the subconscious understanding that you are supported and loved by your family or community (and if provided for organically, this is often what teenagers rebel against in their quest for autonomy and self-determination) has given way to a very "unnatural" manner in which poor, inner-city youth rebel because they are scared of their own independence. In a way, their rebellion is a collective cry, "See our lives, listen to our stories."
This "cry" is often an existential turning point for emotional growth in human beings. In fact, in Biography: A Very Short Introduction, Hermione Lee recounts Virginia Woolf's narrative struggle in actualizing her own existence: "…she said of her own life: 'I see myself as a fish in a stream; deflected; held in place; but cannot describe the stream."(2)
Woolf condenses quite profoundly the difficulty of exposing the conditions that create one's identity. If the "stream" cannot be described, neither can the "fish."(3) In some ways, Woolf, in defining her own struggle (or desire) to be "seen," articulates the same struggle that a child in a violent, urban environment has regarding his living conditions. There's an interesting duality that happens for a child when he constructs an emotional shell around himself: he is not only protecting himself from his community, but he is protecting the community as well. His home is his community and his community is his home. No matter how a child feels about each, there is a sacredness there…even if it is encapsulated in a yearning (or a sense of loss) for what those two environments could and should provide. And as Lee points out, "Biography even more than autobiography (where the writer can choose how much to talk about the world surrounding the self), has a duty to the stream as well as to the fish." (4)
The brilliance of working with the form of biography with students who steadily protect themselves from their conditions is that it is a way to critically engage in the world of others without having to identify that world as their own. A student who has only known the traumatic side of a poor, aggressive and often dangerous urban environment has little awareness of other cultures and people who lie just beyond the boundaries of his community. On a cognitive level, he does not perceive his environment as pitiable, but on a emotional level the student can certainly intuit the threat that is so often rooted in the same community. When a student can empirically connect with another's experience, that self-imposed shell begins to splinter. Whether the person whose story he chooses to tell is an elder, community leader, or parent, a student can begin to extrapolate from an experience, an era, or a relationship, information that can allow him to articulate sentiments about his own community.
Another component to my unit on biography is the gradual empowerment a student experiences in becoming a "Biographer." There's a certain ownership and power that comes with the evolving process of telling someone else's story. Students are not simply completing work in order to receive a grade. In the same manner that students work towards becoming an "Athlete," "President," or "Valedictorian," those working towards the completion of this unit become a "Biographer." I have experienced within my peer work culture adults who have sacrificed pay for a better title. The title signifies status, builds self-esteem, which in turn creates more pride in one's work. In a culture of urban poverty, the names so often bestowed are derogatory and offensive but tolerated as a standard. As a teacher, I am in a constant state of redirecting this norm in language…it's not about creating a punitive measure for the use of a word. It's about creating an awareness of appropriate, empowering language. With this unit, there is the opportunity for a student to earn a name for their achievement: Biographer.
Comments: