Literature and Information

Introduction

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi

With this inspirational and motivational thought, I chose the topic of my unit as developing young peace builders in our community, using literature and information as well as self-reflective learning activities. My first grade students will learn more in depth about different literary genres while at the same time discovering the characteristics and importance of peace builders we read about to awaken their own value and embolden them to contribute to our community even at their young age. They recite our PeaceBuilder pledge at school every morning, yet make limited concrete connections to what it can really mean in their young lives and in their future. Our pledge flows as follows, “I am a peace builder, I pledge to praise people, to give up put downs, to seek wise people, to notice and speak up about hurts I have caused, to right wrongs, to help others, I will build peace at home, at school, and in my community each day.”¹ We will take a look at the vocabulary and phrases of this pledge, using storyboard ideas from our third and fourth grade buddies and the PeaceBuilders activities with our Foothill Family Counseling partner in preparation for this unit.

Using both fiction and nonfiction will help me teach peace builders as role models in a familiar storybook structure such as Jingle Dancer, and then in an unfamiliar yet important fact finding literary structure of biographical nonfiction such as the National Geographic Readers series and the book Amelia to Zora. And then there are Grandfather Gandhi and Seeds of Change, where students can focus on analyzing character traits of peace builders in the comfortable structure of a storybook, yet in picture book biography form. I look forward to students building confidence as readers and learners as they compare and contrast the types of literary works. This is a good way to transition and enhance their reading experience while learning character traits and facts about influential leaders of peace.

Students will learn about heroes, leaders, and peace builders through various literary works in the form of folktales, poems, and biographies. I am eager to share what I have learned in my research and seminar discussions about literature in various genres of fiction and nonfiction. For instance, I look forward to incorporating age appropriate exploration of gender roles, multicultural role models, and hero (peace builder) characteristics. Many great ideas for classroom activities were shared in our collaborative seminar group, which I will include in this unit. Two examples include, identifying familiar Disney characters as peace builders, and a “wax museum” presentation of selected influential people. The literary works of different categories will allow students to not only learn about literature, but also through writings, explore what makes a peace builder special and discover how they themselves are special. Even as children they can contribute this most important kind of wealth to our community.

I hope that this unit will inspire students to tell their stories and to dream of ways to build upon what Tara J. Yosso refers to as “community cultural wealth.”² I will delve into folktales, poems and biographies with the hope of sparking higher-level thinking and discussions around building peace in our community. I believe it is edifying for these young students to identify the qualities and skills within themselves for which they can be proud. They have such an important role in our community and society at large, and need to be able to share and express themselves as they develop into great leaders and peace builders.