Rationale
This unit is inspired by the power of words expressed through the many students own trials and tribulations as they attempt to "find the flow", and in that spirit I open with a quote from "Bilingual/Bilingue" by professional poet Rhina P. Espaillat, who made the journey and returned to tell the tale:
My father liked them separate, one there, one here (alla y aqui), as if aware that words might cut into his daughter's heart (el Corazon) and lock the alien part to what he was – his memory, his name (su nombre) – with a key he could not claim. (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175878 )
With life, comes language. In a classroom, our close proximity to others makes us feel both camaraderie and claustrophobia, and often we address our experiences with others through whatever language we've acquired up to that point. We tend to rely on a primary language, but our experience with others quickly lends us new vocabulary with which to communicate our identities and our experiences to those around us, and we are changed forever. In this context, poetry is those moments when our language becomes fluid, flowing and we feel the thrill of expression. While all the arts provide the support and guidance we need to live life to the fullest, the spoken and in particular the written word has distinguished humans from all other species. The usual growing pains of living are simultaneously an experience with language and one with our emotions, creating an invisible union that grows exponentially stronger with classroom education.
The history of the human race is full of exploration, just as nearly every text we read in a literature class is built around an attempt to explore both a tangible and intangible conflict of some kind through reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Urban, suburban, rural, or wild areas may face a variety of challenges, and as a Language Arts teacher I am tasked with categorizing every literary conflict as either "internal", residing in the soul, psyche, emotions, or mind of the character affected, or "external", coming from outside the person and occasionally involving a direct threat. Language is both internal and external, both emotional and physical, and bilingual students have the opportunity to navigate the private world within themselves and the very public world of communication with others in twice as many pathways.
Poetry both written and spoken has always played a significant role in addressing both internal and external conflicts in both the characters and voice of the poet, but also of the readers, or audience. Good writing, and in particular good poetry, is not just of benefit to the author, but to everyone who comes into his sphere of influence. Students in a bilingual classroom will acquire new words in both languages, from both peers and the instructor who may be older, may have a wider breadth of vocabulary in either language, but is nonetheless a companion on the journey into verse and expression, in any language. Where we are writing, what we read, and what students experience outside of the classroom are all key factors in the material towards which students will gravitate and will need to identify issues with which they identify in order to find where they flow and where they feel barriers. The intangible will become tangible as students work either independently or in groups to research current newspaper articles addressing those specific issues around bilingualism in their area, including signage and graffiti. Meanwhile, the teacher's job will be to facilitate reading, speaking and listening to professional poems through "close readings", seeking to address bilingualism. With language at the center of our exploration of what exists as an "invisible city", students will navigate their own paths into and through the avenues of expression towards greater language acquisition.
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