rosanne mello where i'm from presentation (1)

16
“Where I’m From” (with a Twist): Two poems, Many Lessons Promoting a Community of Writers in the Classroom and Facilitating the Writing Process While Exploring Culture and Identity Rosanne Mello NWP@FGCU summer 2012

Upload: stacey-elmeer

Post on 26-Oct-2014

761 views

Category:

Documents


1 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

“Where I’m From” (with a Twist): Two poems, Many Lessons

Promoting a Community of Writers in the Classroom and Facilitating the Writing Process While Exploring

Culture and Identity

Rosanne Mello

NWP@FGCU summer 2012

Page 2: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Learning Objectives of Lesson

• Students will use mentor texts for close reading, analytical thinking and discussion.

• Mentor texts will be used as models for the students’ poems.

• Students will understand how writers use imagery to create voice and convey meaning in poems.

• Students will recognize the impact of culture on identity.

Page 3: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Multiple Purposes of Lessons Using “Where I’m From” Poems

• Excellent start of the year activity to support and facilitate a positive community of writers and learners in the classroom.

• To teach or reinforce the writing processes and to establish Writers’ Workshop procedures.

• Can be used at the beginning of a Memoir or Personal Narrative Essay Unit to start tapping memories for meaningful stories and lessons from life to write about or to launch a poetry unit.

Page 4: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Where I’m From by George Ella Lyon

I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. I am from the dirt under the back porch.(Black, glistening, it tasted like beets.) I am from the forsythia bushthe Dutch elmwhose long-gone limbs I rememberas if they were my own.

I'm from fudge and eyeglasses, from Imogene and Alafair.

I'm from the know-it-allsand the pass-it-ons,

from Perk up! and Pipe down! I'm from He restoreth my soul

with a cottonball lamband ten verses I can say myself.

I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch, fried corn and strong coffee. From the finger my grandfather lost

to the auger, the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dress boxspilling old pictures, a sift of lost facesto drift beneath my dreams. I am from those moments--snapped before I budded --leaf-fall from the family tree.

Page 5: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

“When I start out working with writers, regardless of age, I begin by saying that writing belongs to everybody.”

“ The main purpose of writing is to get what’sin your head and your heart out on paper so that you can get to know yourself, so that you can understand your stories and make sense of your experience. Often the response is “But I don’t have any stories!”

(G.E. Lyon)

Page 6: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

“The intense interrogation of personal histories afforded by “Where I’m From’ helped students learn that there experiences are deeply grounded in their social and cultural histories and do not represent universal truths; each individual (and future student) brings unique and valuable experiences- a whole gamut of “Where I’m Froms”- which can be used to value and honor diverse backgrounds.”

(Here comes the twist!)“As we deconstructed the images in Lyon’s poem, we saw mainstream representations of an ideal American childhood portrayed as reality…”

“We realized that we chose a poem that rendered the norm as reality, and we questioned ways in which we may have marginalized the multiple realities of our students and their lives…It’s possible that other students quietly erased their histories and rewrote stories that more closely resembled accepted cultural models.”

“We think it is important to provide students with multiple mentor texts that explore alternative as well as dominant discourse models of childhood experiences.” (Till and Miller, 2010)

Page 7: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Where I’m From

by Willie Perdomo

Because she liked the “kind of music” that I listened to and she likedthe way I walked as well as the way I talked, she always wanted toknow where I was from.

If I said that I was from 110th Street and Lexington Avenue, rightin the heart of a transported Puerto Rican town, where thehodedores live and night turns to day without sleep, do you thinkthen she might know where I was from?

Where I’m from, Puerto Rico stays on our minds when the fresh breeze of café con leche y pan con mantequilla comes through ourhalf-open windows and under our doors while the sun starts to rise.

Where I’m from, babies fall asleep to the bark of a GermanShepherd named Tarzan. We hear his wandering footsteps under a midnight sun. Tarzan has learned quickly to ignore the woman who begs her man to stop slapping her with his fist. “Please, baby! Porfavor! I swear it wasn’t me. I swear to my mother. Mameee!!!” (Herdead mother told her that this would happen one day.)

Where I’m from, Independence Day is celebrated every day. The final gunshot from last night’s murder is followed by the officious knock of a warrant squad coming to take your bread, coffee and freedom away.

Page 8: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Where I’m from, the police come into your house withoutknocking. They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shootmy father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and saythey found me that way.

Where I’m from, you run to the hospital emergency room becausesome little boy spit a razor out of his mouth and carved a crescentinto your face. But you have to understand, where I’m from even thedead have to wait until their number is called.

Where I’m from, you can listen to Big Daddy retelling stories onhis corner. He passes a pint of light Bacardi, pouring the dead’stributary swig onto the street. “I’m God when I put a gun to your head. I’m the judge and you in my courtroom.”

Where I’m from, it’s the late night scratch of rats’ feet that explains what my mother means when she says slowly, “Bueno, mijo,eso es la vida del pobre.” (Well, son, that is the life of the poor.)

Where I’m from, it’s sweet like my grandmother reciting a quick prayer over a pot of hot rice and beans. Where I’m from, it’s prettylike my niece stopping me in the middle of the street and telling me to notice all the stars in the sky.

Page 9: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Some Theories Behind the Lesson

Classroom writing instruction and activities help students to find an authentic voice.

“When I talk about voice, I mean written words that carry with them the sense that someone has actually written them. Not a committee, not a computer: a single human being. Writing with voice has the same quirky cadence that makes human speech so impossible to resist listening to.”

- Ralph Fletcher What a Writer Needs

“ Voice does not arise from nothing . It’s influenced by much .Our voices are shaped by the places where we learned language-in our parent’s arms, at our school desks, in the neighborhood, on playgrounds and streets. In my case, my dad’s barroom and bowling alleys had me experimenting with spicy vocabulary by third grade.” –Tom Romano Crafting Authentic Voice

Page 10: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

The writing tasks we give to our students should be meaningful and allow them to write with a sense of purpose and for an audience.

“Fundamental in the making of writers is not a knowledge of this or that grammatical point, a strategy of style, or a strong desire to write, but fully carrying out the act of writing to be read by real persons who respond.”

- Ken Macrorie Writing to be Read

“Our writing takes on a greater urgency when we have real purposes for writing and real audiences who are reading the writing , which suggests that publishing student writing in some form is a critical aspect of the process”.

-Reade W. Dornan, Lois Matz Rosen, and Marilyn Wilson

Within and Beyond the Writing Process in the Secondary Classroom

Page 11: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

“There is no singular writing process-there are multiple processes-and the processes are recursive rather than linear.”

“Writers need a toolkit of strategies, activities, and approaches to draw on as they compose. Learning to write means learning to use a variety of genres and forms..(and) students need to write for a variety of purposes”.

“Writing can and should be meaningful to the writer, a source of personal pleasure and satisfaction, as well as a means for social action and academic success. Writing is a tool that gives students power over their lives”.

-Reade W. Dornan, Lois Matz Rosen, and Marilyn WilsonWithin and Beyond the Writing Process in the Secondary Classroom

Page 12: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

More Assumptions About Facilitating Writing in the Secondary Classroom

Writing is thinking.

Students learn to write by writing and by reading other authors.

Mentor texts help students improve their writing.

Conversations about mentor texts (Text –talks or Invitations to Notice) are engaging and effective instructional activities.

The teacher needs to participate in the classroom as a writer herself and model writing behaviors and processes.

When an environment of a community of writers has been established in the classroom, student will take risks and grow as writers.

“Much of our best writing begins with the personal connection because we write best out of what we know.” (Dornan, Rosen, and Wilson)

Page 13: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Day 1

Before reading PoemsQuick talk- Where are you from?Focused Free Write- Where are you from? Whole Group-Read and Chart noticings -Poem 1 Whole Group –Read and Chart noticings- Poem 2

Day 2Reread poems silentlyHighlight examples of imagery in both poemsSmall groups chart and list imagery under senses-sight sound taste touch smellNotice additional categories for words and phrases- Proper nouns, phrases people said, brand names, things in the house, things in the yard, street life.Discussion: How are the poems similar and how are they different?Writing Task: Choose one poem to write about…

Suggested Instructional Sequence

Page 14: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

Day 3- Writing our own “Where I’m From Poems”Brainstorming ActivitiesFocused FreewriteImagery Chart and Categories List or List of Questions promptsBegin Drafts

Day 4- Continue Writing and RevisingPeer Reviews and RevisionsTeacher Conferences

Day5-Polishing Final Drafts, Publishing And Celebrations

Page 15: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)
Page 16: Rosanne Mello Where I'm From Presentation (1)

References

Dornan, R.,Rosen, L.,& Wilson,M. (2003). Within and beyond the writing process in the secondary English Classroom. Boston, MA: Pearson education Group.

Fletcher, R. (1993). What a writer needs. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Lyon, G.E. (1993).Where I’m from. Retrieved June 10,2012, from http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html.

Macrorie,K. ( 1984 ). Writing to be read. Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.

Perdomo, W. (1996). Where a nickel costs a dime: poems. New York,NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Romano,T. (2004). Crafting authentic voice. Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.

Till,S.,&Miller,E. (2010). “Where I’m from”:One poem, many journeys. Talking Points, 21 (2):2-8.