Activities
Week 1: Building self-identity to learning about the environment.
This unit is to be implemented in a span of 15 days. It can be modified to reduce or add more days to encourage student comprehension for each section or days. The unit will begin by introducing poetry reading to the students. After introduction, students will be exposed to several poems. Along with the poetry reading, activities for the students will involve different strategies learned from the Yale National Initiative Sessions and through best practice researched strategies to enjoy reading poetry. Furthermore, the aim is for students to become poets themselves.
Week 1: Day 1: As a part of introduction and review, the teacher will create an anchor chart showing the characteristics of prose. Students should be familiar with a piece of prose or story from previous lessons, so it will be review for them. Teacher will move to the next part after reading a simple poem, such as nursery rhymes of choice. This is with the understanding that all students hear nursery rhymes at some point in their lives, such as in kindergarten or from their home environment. The teacher will then show the characteristics of a poem. Teacher can label parts of poetry. For our grade level, students should be familiar with the following parts of a poem, in addition to the purpose: stanzas, lines, verse, pattern, tone, mood, rhythm, rhyme, beat. This anchor chart will help students learn the characteristic of a poem. The anchor chart is considered a visual aid which supports learning for English Language Learners, and or Exceptional Students. After showing and identifying the parts, students will then compare and contrast the parts of poetry with those of prose. Teacher focuses on the writing differences between prose and poetry. Teacher can use the different graphic organizer that best helps students understand similarities and differences. For Tsaile Public School, we use graphic organizer sets called, Double Bubble Map, by a company name, Thinking Maps. It works just the same as a Venn Diagram but has more maps for different purposes.
Day 2 and Day 3: Through the Hózhó model, the focus is to learn of oneself and the environment of one’s life. The idea of learning to accept yourself and to be happy with oneself is the goal of this unit. Students should feel happy and content with themselves. In addition, they should have the respect for their neighbors as well as the environment itself. For this reason, students should be exposed to learning from within to outside. In the Hózhó way, the ideal thing to do every morning is to observe oneself and to begin by addressing the needs, such as a positive attitude. From saying a prayer to getting ready for the day with goals in mind. If there are animals to feed, that would come next, or plants that need to be watered which is considered sacred and provides life. So for this activity, Teacher will introduce a poem written by Joy Harjo, Eagle Poem. The idea for this poem is to have the students think about themselves and their surroundings. In addition to this poems, the students’ activity will involve them in analyzing the poem, and to describe themselves using positive adjective words in a silhouette body of themselves, and to discuss and share the meaning behind the poem. For this poem, students will basically learn how the language is used and the structure of the poem to express feelings or the point of view of the writer. For each day, the teacher will review and discuss in groups or partners about connecting with self and the environment. Furthermore, identify the feeling and discuss the traits of that character. In addition, students can illustrate using pictures to express their thoughts about the poem. The students each day can use descriptive words to share feelings using the five senses. Later in the unit, students will use some of the words collected to write a poetry of self or the environment.
Day 4 and Day 5: In addition to learning about the environment, such as the plants, animals, learning about one’s family, and to basically enjoy reading poetry. According to the Hózhó model, connecting with the living things around you is important. One’s surrounding is a connection with earth, and the connection with family is K’é. K’é is a Navajo word meaning “relationship” or “kinship”. In connecting with a mother’s love and the environment, Shonto Begay’s poem, In My Mother’s Kitchen and Many Faces and Many Stories will be read with the students. Graphic organizers will be used for this activity to demonstrate the understanding of the texts. In addition, images and illustrations are a way for a reader to understand the poem. Most of Shonto Begay’s illustrations are beautifully done. With the help of the illustrations, students analyze the illustration to grasp what the poem is conveying. In Shonto Begay’s first poem, he shares the emotion and the love he has for his mother when he was growing up. The students will be able to make the connection about their own mother. The illustrations are very well detailed and relevant to the student’s own environment, which makes it easy to make the connection. The students at Tsaile Public School can connect with the feelings of the author. Students can highlight words or do an erasure to depict what the poem is basically about. The students will also be involved in making illustration about their mother, or the environment around them. The illustration can be created collected and combine to made into a quilt.
Week 2: Fun with Poetry
Day 1 and Day 4: The second week will have the students enjoying poetry. In addition, students write about their environment, how people and the environment are connected together. Teacher will read and show some poems from Orlando White’s Letterrs and Tyhimba Jess’s Olio that are in the form of shapes. White used the word and letters water, but at the same time, uses the Navajo word for water, to in the center of it. For Orlando White’s poem, he likes to use shape and the Navajo words to mean the same thing. This encourages students to learn the language as well. In Jess’s book of poetry, teacher will read, “Millie and Christine Mckoy.” For this activity, teacher will model reading the poem as students listen. Teacher will explain the structure of the poetry and how it is read. The two voices poetry is a fun way students can write together and them merge their thoughts together. They can use the silhouette and add their thoughts about certain issues or something relating to their environment. This activity can be extended to the five days where students make different shapes and two voice poems to collaborate. Furthermore, students will learn about how they connect with the environment from the Hózhó model. Students’ viewpoints are shared with each other! These are exciting activities for the students to be engaged in. Students can go further and make a play out of some of the poems. Some of the Navajo thoughts and songs are shared during this activity.
Day 5: The students will connect everything they have learned from week 1 and week 2. For this day, students at Tsaile Public School say a class pledge. The pledge is written in Navajo. The pledge is recited on a daily basis. A majority of the students do not know what they are actually saying. Tsaile Public School students mostly speak the English language. About 20 percent of the students can understand, but not all words. Most words they understand are words such as school, the names of the mountains (four scared mountains) and the word hózhó. Reading this chant and analyzing the meaning of the chant, such as acting it out, or even doing sign language or some gesture will allow the students to comprehend what they are saying. In addition, the students will hear short chants, songs that teach them about life from the time of their birth to old age; they will learn to understand their path and their purpose in life. Some of the chant songs are very spiritual, and they have a very positive meaning.
Week 3: Day 1- Day 5
The last week of the unit, students will be exposed to paper making. Students will learn to make paper to write on. In addition, they will learn to bind the papers to make a book. Students can independently collect their own writing, or as a class bind a collection of poems. Lastly, students will get to write some poems and become authors. I am sure many will not hesitate to write!
Comments: