Mini-Lessons (Classroom Activities)
Day 1- "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon
The first day of class will be spent reading this poem. I plan to read the poem aloud to my students instead of them having to read it to themselves. After reading it, I want to analyze each stanza as some stanzas appeal to our senses and others bring us to pause. I want to pull out symbolisms and details that may be personal to the author. I definitely want to allow a time for questions and comments as I am sure some students may not understand some inferences or concepts that were developed. Now, I want students to write their own "Where I'm From" poems. After they finish writing them, I will volunteer to share my poem first. I will project my poem for all to see so that after I read it, I can begin to tell a bit about my life. As I share, I will pose the questions,
- Can anyone relate to my poem?
- Who has been through something similar?
- Is this different from you?
- If so, how or how not?
I want to show the class how I can be vulnerable because I am sure that others will hesitate to share their poems. As students share their poems, I will pose those same questions to highlight the differences and similarities among us.
Day 2 – A Day at Hillside
This day will be spent dividing my students into small cooperative learning groups. As they are in their groups, I will show the short film, A Day at Hillside. This film should be familiar to them as it is about one of the neighborhoods that feed into the school. By showing this film, I want to get their immediate reactions to the film and have them answer the following questions.
- Do you approve of the film?
- Does the film accurately depict the Hillside Court community? How or how isn't it?
- What are the positives from the film?
- What are the negatives?
- What messages does the film send?
- How should others feel about the film?
- Do you relate to the film? How or how not?
These questions should get at the specifics about my student's cultural geography. Since some students in the group will not be from the Hillside Court community, they can offer a different view to the film by answering the same questions. This can show how closed minded or open minded their peer group is to learning about foreign things. In future lessons, I can refer to this lesson if I feel my students are being closed minded to other cultures. I can simply ask,
- "How did it make you feel when no one wanted to learn about your culture?
- Was it fair to you?
- How did you convince them to learn about it?
- Was it worth it?
Day 3 – Gullah Island
I will show a snippet of "Gullah Gullah Island" which is a kid's show. The Gullah people are a distinctive group of Black Americans from South Carolina and Georgia in southeastern United States. They live in small farming and fishing communities along the Atlantic coastal plain and on the chain of Sea Islands which runs parallel to the coast. This show is presented in a way that shows how these people preserve and honor their culture by sharing it. Whether the Gullah people invite people on the island or tell historical narratives about their ancestors, this kid's program is entertaining and informative. After watching a few minutes of the episode, I will pose the following questions,
- How do the Gullah people preserve their culture?
- How do they share their culture?
- Can you think of another culture in the U.S. that shares the same qualities as the Gullah people?
After completing this assignment, students will develop a theme song for their culture. They will listen to the cartoon's theme song of "Gullah Gullah Island" 1 3 and try to embody some of the same characteristics of the song. This assignment should show how cultures preserve, share, and honor their history through music, art, and dance.
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