Teaching Point of View with Diane Arbus

Point of View is the standpoint from which a story is told. First Person is told from the view point of one of the characters using the pronouns “I” and “We.” Third person limited the narrator is an outside observer that focuses on the thoughts and feelings of only one character. Third person omniscient the narrators an outside observer who can tell us the thoughts and feelings of all the characters in a story. Third person objective the narrator reports the facts of a narrator as a seemingly neutral and impersonal outside observer.

I want students to be able to identify and write with different points of view. After a short mini lesson on point of view I give students a photography from Diane Arbus. Diane Arbus was an American photographer from the 1960s. She photographed a wide range of subjects including in New York City including, carnival performers, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families.  “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know,” she once mused.

Students look at the pictures and select one to write a narrative based on the point of view selected. You can make a copy of the activity here.

Another way to teach point of view is to view this short film “plastic bag” (2010) by Ramin Bahrani.

Follow up with these questions:

• Who is telling the story?
• How do they see the world?
• How is it different than how you see the world? How is it the same?
• Why does the filmmaker chose to tell the story this way?
• How does the filmmaker see the world?
• What message is being communicated?

A longer point of view activity might be to have students imagine they are a plastic bottle being thrown away in the trash instead of being recycled. Maybe you are a candy wrapper tossed in the hallway, a textbook full of scribbles or a library that can’t stand noisy kids.

• Create a story from the point of view of an object in your school that has a problem.
• Get into a group of 4-5 other students and brainstorm issues in your school. Choose one and develop a stance or viewpoint you want to take. What is the issue and how do you want to help.
• What object could help tell your story. What is the problem the object has? How can it be fixed? Perhaps you want to create a slogan or tagline to make other students aware of the problem and how they can help.
• Create a storyboard to communicate your message through actions and images. Who has the problem, how do they try and solve it? How can others help?

If students are reading a book they might use this point of view checklist to help identify and analyze the point of view the text is written in.

What point of view is your text written from? Use examples from the text to support your answer.

How would the text change if it was written from a different point of view?

Whose viewpoint is missing from the text? What effect does that have on the text?

Create a journal entry for one day from the main character’s point of view. What information will you choose to include?

What can you infer about the author’s interest or attitude towards the topic in the text you read?

If the text was rewritten to be a news article, what details would have to be taken out to make it unbiased?

Choose two quotes that show the author’s point of view.

Here is one more video to help teach point of view.

March Madness Poetry Brackets: Close Reading and Poetry Analysis

The amazing Reading Specialist who is new to our school this year shared a poetry bracket with me last week when I mentioned doing a poetry unit with my students. I was familiar with poetry brackets from Kelly Gallagher and NCTE. This poetry immersion activity that is mod­eled after the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tourna­ment.

Charles Steltenkamp described in an article for the Language Arts Journal of Michigan in 2001, “The main ob­jective of the Poetry Tournament is to expose stu­dents to many poems in a short amount of time. Through allowing them to choose which poems “survive” as the tournament goes on, we give them control and freedom over their responses. This sense of individual choice and power over their reading creates a more intense focus for students as they read the poems.”

I selected the poems and arranged them by themes of love, life, family, sports, and overcoming obstacles. I specifically selected a diverse collection of poems and include more contemporary poets or diverse backgrounds. Students were provided an entire digital booklet with all the poems and then reflection pages to write a short response on student selections. This short response is an exercise in literary analysis and the ability to articulate elements of the author’s craft and structure. Students discover the craft and meaning in the poem through collaboration and discussion. Through the collaboration, discussion, and writing reflection students will be able to . . .

• Evaluate the structure of a poem and analyze how it adds to the meaning of a poem. 

o How does a poem’s structure contribute to its meaning?

• Contrast and evaluate the mood and tone of a poem.
o What words did the author use to convey a specific feeling?

• Choose and interpret figurative language within a poem.
o How does figurative language enhance your understanding of the poem?

• Analyze poetry using close reading strategies to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of the poem.

o How do multiple readings and marking text help you to have a deeper understanding of poetry?

• Rate different types of poems using an elimination bracket .
o What qualities did this poem have that made you want to vote for it to move on?

If you have created and taught a poetry bracket assignment I would love to know more how it went. My students will spend three days a week in Reading and Writing Workshop reading and creating their own poems and then two days a week work on the poetry bracket and close analysis of the poems selected. This will require students to read the poems more than twice and mark up they thinking about the poetry as they are reading and interpreting the prose on the page.

12 Movie Shorts, Animations, and Documentaries

 For Teaching and Promoting Social Emotional Learning

I have taught a media literacy elective to seventh and eighth graders for fifteen years. During that times, movies were a fuel for reading, writing, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. Students analyzed Disney films for their portrayal of sexism, ageism, classism, and racism. Students took on a cause that they were passionate about and created public service announcements and short documentaries to raise awareness and call to action.  Students analyzed the features of the classic Twilight Zone episode and the current Stranger Things to identify elements of suspense and storytelling. But you do not need to be teaching an academic class specific on media literacy to bring movies into your classroom as a teaching tool for social emotional learning. Utilizing short films in any classroom can provide mini lessons and conversations to address social emotional learning with children and adults. 

Currently, I am kicking off the week with “Movie Mondays” in my middle school literacy lab where students view a short film and extract themes and key ideas the first fifteen minutes of this academic support class. These films become teaching tools to support close reading skills, critical thinking, and social emotional learning. 

Here is a list of a dozen short films available on Youtube, TedEd,  and Vimeo that promote SEL themes and topics. Be sure to preview the films before you show them with your students. You know better than I do what is appropriate for the students in your classroom. 

Being “different,” Accepting Others who are Different, and Building Empathy

1. I Have a Visual Disability and I Want You To Look Me In The Eye – NYT Opinion – This short documentary is part of the New York Times Op-Doc series and was created by James Robinson, a filmmaker from Maine He uses his personal experiences to shows what it feels like to live with several disabling eye conditions. “Using playful graphics and enlisting his family as subjects in a series of optical tests, he invites others to view the world through his eyes.” This video is a powerful essay on  seeing and being seen, how we treat others who look different.

2. A Conversation on Race – New York Times Series – Started in 2015, The New York Times created eight videos that included testimony of people talking about race, ethnicity and gender. These short films focus on identity in America.

Perseverance & Promoting Growth Mindset

3. One Small Step by TAIKO Studios – This animated short film tells the story of a young girl and her quest to become an astronaut. Viewers see her perseverance, dealing with set backs, and then reaching her goal.

4. Hair Love by Sony Picture Animation – Hair Love, an Oscar®-winning animated short film from Matthew A. Cherry, tells the heartfelt story of an African American father learning to do his daughter’s hair for the first time. The movie also addresses cancer and how a family copes when a parent is sick. There is no dialogue and the images themselves are powerful for making inferences.

5. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk – University of Pennsylvania professor and author, Angela Lee Duckworth describes her job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.

6. The Boost Students Need to Overcome Obstacles TED Talk by Anindya Kundu – How can disadvantaged students succeed in school? For sociologist Anindya Kundu, grit and stick-to-itiveness aren’t enough; students also need to develop their agency, or their capacity to overcome obstacles and navigate the system. He shares hopeful stories of students who have defied expectations in the face of personal, social and institutional challenges.

7. Pip Goes to Guide Dog School By Southeastern Guide Dogs – In this animated short, Pip enters canine university in order to become a guide dog. Although he does not meet the guide dog standards, he shows grit, diligence, and tenacity to become a guide dog. Despite not passing the guide dog test, once outside in the “real world” Pip shows his strengths and ability to be a lead dog.

8. Instructions for a Bad Day – Shane Koyczan – Shane Koyczan is a powerful Canadian poet. His poems address topics of bullying, self regulation, cancer, death, and perseverance. Also check out these other poems, “To This Day Project ” and “How to Be a Person.”

Designing a Better World + Encourage and Guide Positive Social Activism and Social Awareness

9. Man vs. Earth by Prince Ea – Prince Ea is a spoken word poet and his videos on YouTube address key themes of acceptance, social action using the power of language to communicate his message.

10. Plastic Bag directed by Ramin Bahrani – Plastic Bag is a short film where a Plastic Bag goes on an epic journey in search of its lost Maker, wondering if there is any point to life without her. The Bag encounters strange creatures to be with its own kind until it ends up in the North Pacific Trash Vortex.

Communication, Emotional Regulation, Compassion

11. Modern Love, A Kiss Deferred (Animated)The New York Times – A 12 year old girls life and love are turned upside down during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Learn the joys and challenges faced when the war breaks out.

12. How to Be Alone by Sindha Agha New York Times Op Doc – How do you handle being alone? This documentary was created during quarantine and COVID. The director shows viewers how she is dealing with isolation and loneliness, her longing to interact others and lessons learned from arctic explorers.

Have a favorite animation, movie short or documentary that promotes social emotional learning? Share your ideas in the comments section.

10 Strategies and Tools to Activate Knowledge

Understanding what your students already know is key to building initial knowledge that they need. Activating Prior Knowledge is important in students understanding, because it allows them and helps make connections to the new information. Using what students already know, helps teacher assist students with the learning process.

Most teachers utilize a K-W-L Chart for activating knowledge and in 2012 I wrote a blog post Beyond KWL Charts describing eight different strategies, I thought it was time for an update with some new strategies and tools that help “honor what students bring to the classroom and provides them with necessary context and connection to the purpose and payoff of what is to be learned. It is essential to culturally relevant pedagogy,” according to Jeffery D. Wilhelm, Adam Fachler, and Rachel Bear are the authors of the book Planning Powerful Instruction: 7 Must-Make Moves to Transform How We Teach–and How Students Learn.

KWHLAQ – These updated charts extend the range of a basic KWL chart to incorporate more metacognition, and follow-through towards continuing learning and related action. This chart includes How, Actions, and Questions alongside of the traditional what do you already know, what do you want to know, and what have your learned.

BRAIN POURS/BRAIN DUMPS – Brainstorming comes in many forms and asks students to write down everything they remember about a topic or subject. This is similar to a free write where students write all the things that come to their mind or they are thinking about without worrying about spelling, punctuation, and proper usage.

CAPTION THIS – One of my favorite activities from Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook, the teacher selects an image and students annotate, comment, and even write a story to describe what they see in the image.

PADLET – This platform is great for collaboration and curation of ideas and activities. I use Padlet with my grad students and middle school students to share ideas, explain concepts, and collaborate in the brainstorming process.

ANSWER GARDEN – Another great online tool to post a question to the class and have students respond in 140 or 170 characters, what is great about this platform is that it creates a word cloud of all the responses with the most repeated words larger than others.

ANTICIPATION GUIDES – An anticipation guide is a comprehension strategy in any content area that poses statements or questions for students about the larger themes and ideas presented in the unit. I use anticipation guide often prior to a reading unit to gauge students thinking about themes connected to the unit of study. You can preview the one I created on Google Forms on WW2 and the Holocaust

GALLERY WALK – During a gallery walk, students explore multiple texts or images that are placed around the room. I use this strategy for students to respond to a collection of quotations, images, and textual excerpts. This strategy requires students to physically move around the room, it can be engaging to kinesthetic learners. Texts should be displayed “gallery style,” in a way that allows students to disperse themselves around the room, with several students clustering around each particular text. Texts can be hung on walls or placed on tables. The most important factor is that the texts are spread far enough apart to reduce significant crowding. Students walk around the room to read or view the texts around the room and then respond or comment on poster paper, a graphic organizer, or later during a large class debrief.

GAMES like Kahoot, QuizletLive, Quizalize, Quizizz – Test what students already know about a topic or idea by asking a series of questions on a game platform. Students love these games and they are perfect to access prior knowledge with low stakes or can also be utilized at the end of the lesson to see what students learned.

SURVEYs/QUESTIONAIRES – Make a list of 10-15 statements related to the subject content, including commonly held misconceptions. Have students mark “true” or “false” next to each statement.

WORD WEBS – Provide students with a word web of key words and concepts related to the topic or concept to be learned. Ask students to circle the words they already know or write a sentence using a 4-5 of the words that explains the connections between the ideas presented in the word web.

Have more ideas that work well with your students, share in the comments section for our readers.

8 Activities to Help Students Understand & Experience the National Parks

I recently took a family trip to Maine for a week and during our trip we visited Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor. Visiting the park that was breathtaking, the gorgeous views of the ocean and surrounding Maine Islands. We travelled up to Cadillac Summit, the highest peak on the Eastern Seaboard – note I am afraid of heights so this was scary and it took me awhile to get out of the car as my kids jumped around on the rocks! We drove down to Jordon Pond, a glistening 187 acre pond formed by the Wisconsin Ice Sheet during the last glacial period. Driving around Park Loop Road we stopped to take in the incredible rock formations, cliffs, ocean, and tried to hear the waves crash at Thunder Hole.

Our excursion made me think about the research reports that students have to do about the park and does that really give them an immersive experience to the awe-inspiring beauty of the National Parks. Not really, so here are some alternative activities to help students see the beauty of our planet, maybe become rock nerds, and experience the gems of nature.

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Snapshots from recent trip to Acadia National Park

1. Take A Virtual Trip to a National Park – Many of the National Parks like Yellowstone and Channel Island National Parks allow people a 360 Degree Video of the geological features in each national park. Some parks provide videos and virtual tours for students to immerse themselves in the rich marine life underwater at Channel Island National Park or watch the sun rise over Garfield Peak in Crater Lake National Park. Check out this virtual tour down to Jordan Pond in Acadia.

2. Geology Connections – America has a rich geological legacy and the National Parks help us understand the Earth’s history and formation. Students can study rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, land forms, geologic time. Ask students to look at the rocks in their neighborhood and community as an entry point to understanding larger geologic fundamentals. Or students might create a chocolate Rock Cycle model.This topic is also lends itself to a lesson on weathering and erosion.

3. Learn About Indigenous Land – Maine is the homeland of the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawn. At the beginning of the trail to Acadia National Park is the Abbe Museum, which showcases the history and cultures of the Native people in Maine, the Wabanaki. All of the land in the United States and Canada was the homeland of Indigenous people and we need to recognize that and teach students about the people who came before us. There is a history before the “explorers founded and settled on American soil. This can include lessons on deconstructing stereotypes, Colonization, and Human Rights.

4. Observe & Respect the Wildlife – Our national parks is home to incredible wildlife. Wildlife Webcams allow students to observe the incredible wildlife in our National Parks. From bear cams to ocean cams, and eagle cams, students can see these animals in natural habitats. Watch, study, and research more about your favorite animal living in the National Parks to share with others.

5. Let’s Play Games and Challenges – What do you know about our National Parks? The National Parks Service has curated a page of games and challenges that any students can play. Test your knowledge of wildlife and bird calls, draw, design, or create something inspired from the parks, or play virtual national parks bingo. Students can try out one or many of these games and challenges or create their own game. If you love games, Underdog Games created a fun game that I have played with my family called Trekking the National Parks board game to learn more about the National Parks and makes you want to visit all of the 60 National Parks across the U.S.

6. Literature & Poetry – Through America’s history, writers and poets have found beauty and inspiration in nature. After taking a virtual tour of the National Parks or sharing images from different parks around the United States, students can write their own poetry and writings inspired by the landscapes. Forest Poetry, POV piece from a Grizzly living in the park or coyote climbing Bubble Mountain, write a narrative based on the people who first lived on the land, these are three different writing activities to inspire students creativity and learn more about the National Parks.

7. Read Literature and Writing Inspired by Nature – There are many writings about nature that students can read and analyze or use as mentor texts for their own writing. The National Parks Service has a lesson plan deconstructing Carl Sandburg’s Poem “Fog.” Here is Book Riot’s curated list of 33 poems on Nature that Honor the Natural World.

Fog

BY CARL SANDBURG

The fog comes 
on little cat feet. 

It sits looking 
over harbor and city 
on silent haunches 
and then moves on.

8. Conservation is Key – Conservation is the protection, preservation, management, or restoration of natural environments and the ecological communities that inhabit them. According to the recent United National Climate Report, “Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.” It is imperative that we take bigger steps to helping reduce this window to climate crisis. Students can use this report as a catalyst to conducting projects and reports to show ways we can all make a difference to slow down climate change. Educators 4 Social Change publishes articles, lesson plans, videos, and informational sites to help teach climate change.

End of the Year Activities for Students

Here are five fun literacy activities you can use with your students to close out an interesting year of blended learning due to the pandemic.

1) Send thank-you emails

What better way to end the year than helping students learn how to craft notes of appreciation and sending them to faculty, staff, and other students?  Everyone has worked hard the last few months and could use kind words.  In times of quarantine, social distancing, and hybrid learning, taking time to stop and acknowledge individuals with heartfelt gratitude helps students realize both others’ impact on them and their impact on others.

2) Progressive stories

Begin a new document with a list of randomly-ordered student names with your class.  Write a starting sentence in the document and share the document with the first person on the list.  The first student has to continue the story with a sentence of their own, then share the document with the second person on the list.  Continue this sequence until every student has contributed.  For variation, start a couple of different stories with the list of names in different order.  See what creative and humorous stories emerge!

3) Found poem gallery

Students can use their mobile devices to snap a photo of an existing block of text (such as a page in a book).  Students can use an annotation tool to strategically and thoughtfully mark out words, leaving a small number of words uncovered that result in a poem.  Students can post their finished poems to Padlet or some other platform for others to comment on their creations.  You can see an example on Kate Hutchinson’s blog.

4) Six-word memoirs

Students can summarize their pandemic-shortened school year in six cleverly-chosen words.  You can read more about this project idea HERE.

5) Video & Film Challenges

Give your students a prompt to make a short video to close out the school year. Tim Needles @timneedles always has some inspiring video and art challenges from untraditional selfies to self portraits. You can find a lot more creative ideas on his YouTube Channel and the Jacob Burns Film Center Education Blog also posts different film challenges students can partake in.

Hopefully these five suggestions get you started thinking about other ideas you can incorporate. 

Jammin’ with Google’s Jam Board

This week my school quarantined due to a COVID outbreak. As a result, the next two weeks we are teaching synchronous lessons remotely. Students and teachers are online from 8AM – 3PM; that is A LOT of screen time. How do you keep students engaged in live online lessons?

This semester I have found Google’s Jamboard to be a great chameleon-like tech tool for any content area teacher to utilize. Here are ten suggestions how you can use Google’s Jamboard for collaboration, classroom hooks, showcase understanding, exit tickets, and even assessment. What is even more awesome, you can open or create a Jamboard right in Google Meets.

Now this tool is not all cotton candy and rainbows. An important thing to note is that just like any of Google’s other collaborative tools, once you share a Jam with your class they have full editing power, meaning they could write on any and every sticky note provided for the class (or do a number of other devious things. So, setting clear expectations with students is imperative.

This quick video shows students adding ideas and observations to a class Google Jamboard during a Google Meet after reading aloud a student’s essay on gun control. Students add sticky notes with their observations of the craft moves in the essay.

1. Stickynote Brainstorming – Ask a question. Students respond and reflect. Jamboard is great for student brainstorming to share their thinking in a collaborative way.
2. Annotate a Text – Consider Jamboards a giant whiteboard and the teacher can add print text, a key quote or even a picture. Students can each annotate and write around the text to show thinking and understanding. FYI, if you teach science you might post an image of a cell or rock formation and students flood the board identifying and labeling elements of the image. This video provides more detail how to annotate texts in Jamboard.
3. Graphic Organizers – The teachers can use a Jamboard template to create a Frayer Model or Sequence Chart, or Mind Map. Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook offers lots of graphic organizers for Jamboard you can copy and use in your classroom.
4. Jamboard templates – Want more? this post on Ditch that Textbook provides 10 Jamboard templates for distance learning (with Kris Szajner)
5. Exit Tickets are easy to create on Jamboard. Students can post something they learned, a question they have or even rate the lesson. The tech fairies recommend for exit tickets, keep it as simple as students dragging their sticky note to a column (or image) that was labeled with what they learned, what was interesting, or a question that they still have.
6. SEL – Since many students are learning in isolation being remote, teachers are now being asked to focus on social emotional learning. Beginning your lesson with a check in using emojis, pictures, and icons, and asking how are you feeling allows teachers to take a SEL temperature among students.
7. Freewriting & Sketchnoting – Give students the space and time to sketch and write responses, prototypes, even brainstorm story and design ideas. Provide students the opportunity to debrief afterwards and share their thinking with others.
8. Storyboarding – Students can put sticky notes of events that happened in a story or book to create a plot pyramid. In History class students can design a timeline or if students are creating a movie they might sketch and write out the types of shots to plan the beginning, middle, and end of the story presenting.
9. Show What You Know – Math teachers can use Jamboards for students to show their work and explain how to solve a problem or define a math concept.
10. Towering Ideas – Google has a collection of Jamboard activities for students in grades 6-12 that focus on critical thinking and collaboration. You can read more about them in this document: Student Centered Learning with Jamboard.

Before Jamboard I used Padlet and I still am, but as a paid platform I am limited in the amount of padlets I can create using the free version. With Jamboard, I can create unlimited Jamboards and allow for similar collaborative features that Padlet provides. Plus, teachers are getting even more creative using Jamboards for blackout poetry, games, and 6 word stories and more. Perusing social media and Pinterest, you can find lots more ideas to adapt for your own content and students learning.

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker as a Touchstone Text

Happy New Year and 2020!

With all of the buzz this holiday season due to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the concluding episode in the nine-episode Skywalker saga, I want to start the new year off with a post offering teaching ideas and lessons for this epic story.

Image from ign.com

Now, if you didn’t see the movie, note there are some spoilers throughout this post.

Let’s talk theme first. This is a story about family, good versus evil, finding your inner strength, and friendships. In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, co-writer of Episode IX Chris Terrio states, “When Luke says, “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect” in Episode IX, that’s Luke speaking. That’s his own character. He’s making fun of himself. He’s saying to Rey, “Please don’t make the same mistake that I did.” That’s another theme of the film. How do we learn from our ancestors? How do we learn from our parents? How do we learn from the previous generation? How do we learn from all the good things that they did but not repeat their mistakes? In that moment, it truly is a character moment because we quite deliberately set up the same situation of tossing a saber, but this time, Luke is there to save Rey from making a bad choice” (2019).

Each episode tackles its own themes about coming of age, courage, and a grand theme about family.

Star Wars is based on Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth or Hero’s Journey.

Image from AttackoftheBooks.com

Throughout the entire saga viewers follow Luke, Anakin, Rey, and even Kylo Ren along their own Hero’s Journey described by Joseph Campbell. As Jedi’s Luke Skywalker and Rey have similar journeys, Anakin and his grandson, Kylo Ren follow their own journeys into – and for Kylo Ren, out of the dark side.

Check out this lesson plan from Prestwick House on Star Wars and the Hero’s Journey.

Particularly in Episode IX, there is a major scene between Kylo/Ben Solo and his father’s memory, Han Solo. In Hollywood Reporter article, Terrio states, “Atonement with the father is a very Joseph Campbell idea. In a way, the great family sin of Kylo Ren was parricide — he killed his father. He committed any of number of sins throughout the galaxy; he’s not an angel. He’s done many truly horrible things, but on a level of the family saga, as in any Greek myth, it was the killing of a parent that is the central sin that needs to be atoned for.”

 

Following the idea of mythology and Star Wars, in the Hollywood Reporter article, “Why ‘Star Ways: The Rise of Skywalker’ is Dividing Fans, author Richard Newby states, “The Rise of Skywalker relies on the idea that people can create their own myths, regardless of the circumstances they were born into. Rey’s arc is echoed through Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Kylo Ren, a former stormtrooper, drug smuggler and heir to the dark side. Each of these three characters seemed destined for villainy, but The Rise of Skywalker instead acknowledges the fact that, yes, everyone has a past, but not everyone is destined to be who they are because of bloodlines or past mistakes. Rey’s parents chose to be nobody, and she chooses to be somebody, rectifying the failures of two lineages, Palpatine and Skywalker, and choosing who she is, adopting the namesake that means something to her — not because she was chosen for it, but because she chose it. She is the story she tells to herself, rather than the story others have told about her.” Thus, this story helps our students learn that they are in charge of the story of themselves, no matter who their parents are or the situations they are born into. This element of the story provides hope and encouragement for viewers.

 

Back in 2016, the New York Times Learn Network  provided readers with different lesson plan ideas connecting to history, science, and English Language Arts. Additional lessons bring Star Wars literacy across the content areas with math, economics, and even art and design.

The Literary Analysis of Star Wars is another aspect to examine. Obi-Wan says to Luke Skywalker during Return of the Jedi (1983), “What I told you was true, from a certain point of view,” “A certain point of view?” Luke replies incredulously. Obi-Wan responds in turn, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”

Point of view is key throughout the Star Wars movies. You might have students write their own short story or monologue from another character’s point of view. In fact, Penguin Random House published a collection of short stories written by contemporary young adult authors titled Star Wars): From a Certain Point of View by Renee Ahdieh, Meg Cabot, Pierce Brown, Nnedi Okorafor, Sabaa Tahir. This collections offers 40 stories celebrating 40 years of Star Wars.

So, what is your favorite Star Wars quote? And how do you use Star Wars in your classroom? Let’s start a dialogue in the new year.

 

Lessons from the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin (image courtesy from npr.org)

LEGENDARY singer Aretha Franklin died today. The music icon, who influenced generations of singers with unforgettable hits such as Respect (1967), Natural Woman (1968) and I Say a Little Prayer (1968) has left an indelible mark on the History of Rock and Roll, Civil Rights, and Women’s Right’s Movements.

Franklin cemented her place in American music history with her powerful voice that stretched over four octaves. In her decades-long career, her hits spanned the genres, from soul to R&B, to gospel and pop. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and in 2010, Rolling Stone magazine put her at the top of its list of the 100 greatest singers of all time, male or female.

Of Franklin’s dozens of hits, none was more closely linked to her than the empowering 1967 anthem Respect with its inspiring “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” refrain.

Franklin had more than 10 Top 20 hits in 1967 and 1968 and was pictured on the cover of Time magazine. At a time of rebellion and division, her records were a musical union of the church and the secular, man and woman, black and white, North and South, East and West.

Growing up in the 1950s, Franklin was surrounded by civil-rights activists from a young age, and spent her trailblazing career supporting those who fought for equality—and setting an example herself as an American success.

Franklin was raised primarily by her father, C.L. Franklin, a Baptist minister and a civil-rights activist that organized the 1963 Detroit Walk to Freedom, which was the largest civil-rights demonstration in U.S. history until the March on Washington displaced it two months later. Martin Luther King Jr., a friend of C.L. Franklin’s, delivered an early version of his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Detroit march.

In 2016 interview with Franklin, Elle Magazine noted it was written into her contract in the 60s that she would never perform for a segregated audience. Franklin said she was glad that the song became linked to feminist and civil-rights movements. She added that the line “you know I’ve got it” has a direct feminist theme.

“As women, we do have it,” she says. “We have the power. We are very resourceful. Women absolutely deserve respect. I think women and children and older people are the three least-respected groups in our society.”

Aretha Franklin’s lyrics and life story are teaching tools for our students. Whether reading a biography about the Queen of Soul or analyzing her song lyrics, Franklin offers many lessons throughout her music that touch on topics of activism, relationships, and power.

Listening to Franklin’s lyrics one could analyze:

• What is this song about?  What message is the singer trying to convey?
• Do the lyrics remind you of anything you have learned about concerning the civil right’s movement and or women’s movement in the 1960s?
• What craft moves and music elements influences in this song? — Possible answers include call-and-response, complex rhythms between different instruments, and/or a Gospel performance style.
• What elements of music have popular artists today borrowed, modeled, and mentored from Franklin’s music?

Hidden History

In the Author’s Note of Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea she writes,

Every nation has hidden history, countless stories preserved only by those who experienced them. Stories of war are often read and discussed worldwide by readers whose nations stood on opposite sides during battle. History divided us, but through reading we can be united in story, study, and remembrance. Books join us together as a global reading community, but more important, a global human community striving to learn from the past.

What determines how we remember history and which elements are preserved and penetrate the collective consciousness? If historical novels stir your interest, pursue the facts, history, memoirs, and personal testimonies available. There are the shoulders that historical fiction sits upon. When the survivors are gone we must not let the truth disappear with them.

Please give them a voice.

Sepetys’ work of historical fiction is a collection of vignettes told in alternating voices of young adults who are refugees trying to escape their war torn countries during World War II and hoping to board the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that will take them to safety. Caught between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia’s Red Army, many of these young people left their homes and families behind on a quest for freedom and safety.

During World War II the Wilhelm Gustloff was carrying more than 10,000 refugees, five thousand who were children,  when on January 30th, 1945, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the ship, sinking with majority of the passengers on board. That is more than the lives lost on the Titanic and the Lusitania, and yet I did not know any of this until I read Sepetys’ book. In fact, she writes that “in the year 1945 alone, over 25,000 people lost their lives in the Baltic Sea due to ships being bombed and sunk.”

I want to hone in on the idea of “Hidden History.” What is the history that gets told and taught in our schools. This concept sparked two different projects for a history/humanities class.

Hidden History Project –  Students research and uncover a piece of “hidden history.” Students can write about or create a video about some aspect of history that has been lost (like a piece of art or artifact), uncover a mystery, or share the story of a survivor or witness.

For example, National Geographic’s video on the mysterious Amber Room, considered the Eighth Wonder of the World, was lost during WWII when it was looted by the Nazis. The Amber Room, a world-famous chamber decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors, originally constructed in the 18th century in Prussia.

Historical Testimonies – When I taught a middle school drama class I asked students to interview a family member one or two generations older than the students and then turn the interview into a monologue to present to the whole class. This assignment has two parts. First students select a family member to interview and brainstorm a list of questions to ask the person about an important time in their life — See the Great Questions from StoryCorps. The second part of the assignment would be for students to read through and edit the interview responses to create a monologue that tells a memory moment of this particular family member. Students can dress up and bring in an artifact of the person when presenting the monologue.