Related Activity #5. "Americans All!" Performance Poetry Creation
Time Frame: Weeks 7 and 8 (3 days a week, 50 minutes per session)
Focus Question: How can we present our understanding of what it is to be an American citizen?
Allow the children to be creative, to think ways to define what it is to be American in the 21st century. Have students share their opinions regarding aspects of American life that serve as indicators in this regards. (I preliminarily canvassed my third graders. They provided their list of indicators asserting that they have the freedom to wear trendy clothes; listen to different types of music; and to eat delicious types of different ethnic foods— including hot dogs and apple pie. They noted that they are free to worship in churches, synagogues, or temples, that they have options to attend private or public schools. They insightfully established that they are free to make choices—that for the good of the community, it is best to make wise ones. Their points of view aligned with Charles R. Smith, Jr.'s poetic work entitled "I Am America." As a result, our class collectively decided that we would to find a way to incorporate this work into their own poetic explanation.)
Preliminary Wheels in Motion
During week seven, have students begin working on the collective poetic writing effort. Have them revisit why people immigrated to America, making note that Native Americans and African slaves are deemed citizens because of the way in which they came to reside in the North America. To be inclusive, have students come up with greetings shared in diverse languages. (My children recommended including twelve salutations representative of languages spoken by students in our school in their poem. They too noted that a Native American greeting should be included as well. In this regard, I volunteered the use of the phrase "ya'at'eeh" based on a salutation I learned from YNI Fellow Barsine Benally, an adept third grade teacher and member of the Dine Nation [more commonly but inaccurately referred to as the Navajo people] in Arizona; the greeting means "all is well today." Ecstatic, my students also thought it best that some students dress up in traditional clothing reflective of aspects of the diversity represented in our classroom and school overall.)
Although we have not yet implemented our poetic production, I envision my students being strategically situated on stage, making their debut before the entire school body in our school's performance space during the first quarter of the upcoming school year. If our proposed presentation cannot be held in the performance space, the gymnasium or school auditorium will serve as an equally appropriate venue. Microphones in place, each student—using poise and prosody—will engagingly recite his or her part.
In the interim, my class has collaboratively worked on the poetic portion of their presentation as follows:
Ya'at'eeh! Hola! Bon jour! Kedu! Namasta! Hello!
We are citizens. Americans all!
We have different styles. Different ways.
Different languages, but we all can say
We live in this great nation filled with diversity.
A great mosaic—descendants in this homeland of the free.
Many of our ancestors were born first in this land
Thriving on this continent before conquests began.
Many of our ancestors traveled across the sea
In search of new beginnings and hope-filled destinies
Some sought religious freedom, some fled poverty and strife
Some came because of famine—starvation was their plight
Some came because of hopes of wealth, some came because of greed
Many were brought in yokes and chains
For others' material needs
No matter what our journey, our lives intertwined
Many helped to build this nation—this country, yours and mine!
Shalom! As-salaam alaikum! Ni hao! An-nyong! Hello!
We are citizens. Americans all!
At this point, my students will jump right in to Charles Smith's work, beginning with the lines "I am proud... I am diverse...soft-spoken and loud..." until the author's entire poetic creation is completed.
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