The first poem to read “Grandmother” by Paula Gunn Allen. I thought that the photography project sounded interesting. I believe that I would read the poem together as a class. I would invite the students to discuss what they think the words in the poem is describing and what they see when they hear the poem. I would also ask the students if they could think of someone (grandmother, etc.) who might fit the words in this poem. They would need to interview this person with questions that we would come up in class (and maybe some more). They could create a story of this person’s life based on these questions. They would also take pictures of this person from multiple viewpoints to help show their story. (We would need to practice taking pictures of things from multiple viewpoints and discussing how these pictures in multiple perspectives adjusts the meaning of the picture. The children would need to explain why they chose the particular perspective for their picture that went with the story.
The second poem is “In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers” by Dwight Okita. To help support this poem, I felt that Identity Stories would be great. I think that it would be a good idea to discuss what we feel to be the identities of each girl in the story. Of course, we would need to have prior history about relocation camps in World War II. I think that this would be an excellent springboard for creating their own identity stories. We could brainstorm things that we might include in our stories. We might even be able to talk about any special family recipes or activities that children could share with the class (they could share recipes, videos, powerpoints, or family members could come in). I think that this would be an excellent project for building community within the classroom!
