Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum

Monthly Update sign up
Follow The Annenberg Learner on Facebook Follow Annenberg Learner on Twitter
Mailing List signup
Search
Follow The Annenberg Learner on LinkedIn Follow The Annenberg Learner on Facebook Follow Annenberg Learner on Twitter
MENU

Learner Log

A place to explore teaching and learning

Latino Books Month: Celebrate Great Authors With Students

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

TML_GracielaLimon
Bobbi Ciriza Houtchens uses a cultural studies approach to help students understand Graciela Limón’s novel Erased Faces about the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico (from The Expanding Canon).

Celebrate the perspectives and writing of great Latino authors with your students during the month of May using the following resources:

Americo Paredes collected “corridos,” songs that narrate the struggles of Mexican heroes against Anglo oppression, and wrote the novel, George Washington Gomez, about a Chicano growing up in the borderlands.  Gloria Anzaldúa’s stories challenge traditional racial, cultural, and gender boundaries.  Both writers are featured in American Passages, unit 2, “Exploring Borderlands.”

Julia Alvarez’s essay “I Want to Be Miss America,” from Something to Declare, describes her Dominican family’s reaction to the pageant and the cultural and racial issues the pageant raised for them. See Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for Middle Grades, workshop 1, “Engagement and Dialogue.”  In the video, watch teacher Carol O’Donnell’s students discuss the work, then share their own writing about a family cultural practice. See summary #7.

Students read and discuss Graciela Limón’s novel Erased Faces about the Zapatista uprising in Mexico. See this cultural studies approach to interpreting a text in The Expanding Canon, session 5, “Cultural Studies: Ishmael Reed and Graciela Limón.”

“I was a different person in Puerto Rico from the one I became in the United States. Not better, not worse – different,” said writer Esmeralda Santiago. She was born May 17, 1948 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and moved the United States when she was 13 years old. Her memoir When I was Puerto Rican has started a discussion of cultural identity and the immigrant experience among her readers. The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School, session 4, “Inquiry,” suggests using various approaches to reading the text with students. Find the full lesson plan here.

In A Biography of America, program 26, “The Redemptive Imagination,” Esmeralda Santiago is a voice in the discussion about the power of storytelling in the context of history.

For a short video clip of Santiago discussing her passion for writing and the influence of reading on her life, see the Learner Express: English Language Arts module for Esmeralda Santiago.

More resources for Latino Books Month

Invitation to World Literature, program 11, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez

American Passages, unit 12, “Migrant Struggle,” includes authors Rudolfo A. Anaya, Alberto Ríos, Tomas Rivera, and Helena María Viramontes.

American Passages, unit 16, “Search for Identity,” includes authors Sandra Cisneros and Judith Ortiz Cofer.

Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for Middle Grades, workshop 7, “Social Justice and Action,” includes authors Alma Flor Ada and Pam Muñoz Ryan.

The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School, session 1, “Reader Response,” My Own True Name by Pat Mora and session 3, “Inquiry,” Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

National Poetry Month: Grab Your Quills and Start Writing

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

POETRY123rfIt’s Poetry Month! Grab your quills (or laptops) and start writing. When the Academy of American Poets started National Poetry Month in 1996, one of their goals was to assist teachers in bringing poetry to their classrooms. Find activities and resources on the Poets.org site.

Start laying the foundation for young writers by encouraging them to keep a writer’s notebook. Students learn to record their thoughts about their experiences and choose the formats (including poems) to deliver those thoughts. See Inside Writing Communities, Grades 3-5, workshop 2, “Reasons for Writing.”

Teach students to distinguish between poetry and prose. One way to do this is to have students write in layers of drafts until a poem starts to emerge. Find this 5th-grade lesson plan in Write in the Middle, workshop 3, “Teaching Poetry.”

Use poetry to help students connect personal experiences and feelings to themes they are reading about. In a technique called “copy-change,” students follow the form of a published poem, and insert their own words, ideas, and emotions. View the lesson in this classroom video for Teaching ‘The Children of Willesden Lane.’

In program 12, “A Sense of Place: Setting and Character in Poetry,” of Literary Visions, hear readings and discussions of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, and listen to Maxine Kumin discuss capturing New England landscapes in her poetry.

Emily Dickinson used her science training to write poetic observations of nature. Her life and work are discussed in Voices & Visions.

Students can compare how poets use images of a city to describe the human condition. See question 5 in American Passages, Context Activities for unit 10, “Rhythms in Poetry:” How do Eliot’s London, Sandburg’s Chicago, and Hughes’s Harlem all represent particular interpretations of the city and the modern condition?

For additional poetry resources:

The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School, session 1, “Reader Response: Pat Mora and James Welch”

Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3-5, program 3, “Starting Out”

Image Copyright: pixelsaway / 123RF Stock Photo

Using Poetry to Facilitate Discussions

Posted on Written by 2 Comments

TML_2_GrimesStudents
Poet Nikki Grimes talks with students. Click on this picture to watch the classroom video in Teaching Multicultural Literature.

“If you present poetry as if it were castor oil, no one will be interested. Instead, teachers can approach it as something fun, and also explore poetry that connects to the students and their lives (as opposed to choosing poetry that they feel “should” be studied).” – Nikki Grimes, in Teaching Multicultural Literature

Poetry is a type of genre with which many students have a hard time engaging. In fact, it’s also a genre that many teachers struggle to teach, as a result of its complexity and form. I, for one, am one of those teachers. Helping students to decipher lines, tropes, and the meaning of poems, while at the same time keeping the lesson engaging was a struggle for me. Consequently, I was a little worried before the start of a poetry unit that my students would be disengaged from the lesson. As a result, I decided to ask students to bring songs, lyrics, or poems that they enjoyed and that conveyed a special message or meaning to them.

To my great surprise, while many students opted to bring song lyrics, a large number of them shared poems that they liked and that resonated with them. One particular student shared Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman.” As she read it, she started tearing up making for a very emotional read.

I asked her about what made her tear up. She answered me with the following, and I will never forget it:

“We’re always put down by society, men, and sometimes those who love us. It’s why I have this on my mirror, it gives me strength every day to walk into the world as a black woman.”

Maya Angelou’s poem resonated with my student and many students who heard it that day, because it touched on what it means to be a woman of colour in society. The poem challenges traditional notions of beauty constructed by society and elevates the beauty of a woman to which we can all relate.

For this lesson I learned three things.

  1. Never underestimate the interest of students in a certain subject area. It might not be a popular subject or theme or unit, but what students might share may allow us to get to know them and understand them.
  2. Poetry, just like literature, has the power to start an open conversation about issues that students care about and that directly touch students’ lives.
  3. By giving students a choice to bring their own examples, I opened room for discussions about topics that are relevant to them. Our particular conversation taught my students about what feminism means and that everyone, not just women, shares a responsibility in advocating for women’s rights.

Facilitating a conversation by teaching poetry began with sharing selections and samples. To help my students start the conversations, I asked them: Why did you choose the piece? What was so special about it? What resonated with you? From there on it’s crucial to build on that conversation through more questioning, inquiry, analysis, and reflections.

In Teaching Multicultural Literature, workshop 2, “Engagement and Dialogue,” read an interview with writer Nikki Grimes about teaching poetry to students. Also explore methods of teaching poetry to help students engage in the work. Find strategies for helping students to connect with the texts they read, and instructions for how to host an open mic event with students.

The most important thing to remember is to enjoy the experience of teaching poetry and learning with and from students.

Frederick Law Olmsted: Urban Planning as Art

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

Frederick Law Olmsted / engraved by T. Johnson ; from a photograph by James Notman. LC-USZ62-36895
Frederick Law Olmsted / engraved by T. Johnson ; from a photograph by James Notman. LC-USZ62-36895

In 1857, Frederick Law Olmsted (b.4.26.1822) and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park in New York City as a work of art, a space distinct from the urban life. Learn how this park was deliberately designed and constructed with a sensitivity to nature in Art Through Time, program 10, “The Natural World.”

See the “Lagoon Bird’s-Eye View” photo of Olmsted’s design of the Chicago World’s Fair site in Activity 2: Campaign for World’s Fair 2010 of Primary Sources, workshop 5, “Cans, Coal, and Corporations.” Consider how this city design and the design of Central Park have inspired future urban landscape plans.

Frederick Law Olmsted was also a writer. He wrote about the differences between Northern and Southern societies during the 1850s, and critiqued the slave labor practices of the South vs. the paid labor of the North. Watch the video for A Biography of America, program 9, “Slavery.”

U.S. Thanksgiving Day: Historical Perspective

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

quakersimagenovupdateThe first Thanksgiving was celebrated by Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors and allies in 1621. While the holiday is often depicted as emblematic of the American experience, historical records tell a different story about relations between native peoples and European settlers.

The first theme in America’s History in the Making, unit 3, “Colonial Designs,” delves into the period between the 1580s and 1680s when European nations and trading companies competed to establish colonies in North America and define colonists’ relations with Native American tribes.

Learn about the early American settlers, including Puritans and Quakers, and their optimistic plans to create utopian societies in the New World in the video for American Passages, unit 3, “Utopian Promise.”

To spark discussion, questions about conflicting early views and persistent stereotypes of Native Americans can be found in the Context Activities section of this unit.

Authors covered in this unit include William Penn, William Bradford, and Anne Bradstreet.