I started a nonfiction unit on writing biographies. I wanted to let students choose books that they were personally drawn too... Wow, I was so incredibly surprised... The entire goal of this writing project was to expose students to important historical figures... Of course, I wanted to create a space for my minority students to learn about leaders in history who looked like them... Well, Jay, an incredibly bright hispanic girl, chose Frida... She enjoys art and dreads writing... I have never seen her so engaged in text. "Look Ms. Wills, she's from Mexico! She likes to paint like me!" Jay exclaimed. On the other hand, I have another hispanic student who chose Madame C.J. Walker. Another interesting example is one of my students, who is not a minority, chose Nelson Mandela.... All it takes is options and availability of different varieties of text. Children are naturally curious. My take away point from this entire experience was that students are equally intrigued by representations of their personal history and new discoveries of other cultures. Balance is key... What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to comment...
1 comment:
I had a similar experience with a young white student in my class who chose to study Nelson Mandela for a Black History Project. We had not discussed Mandela in class, nor had I mentioned him as a possible subject. I was pleasantly surprised by his personal interest in Mr. Mandela, and impressed by his independent research and final product. He made good connections to the world at large, avoiding an overly narrow focus on the individual. Though the word "apartheid" never appears in his work, I feel that his self-guided research was quite impressive and I was proud of his strong performance with a subject which might initially appear to be so foreign to a student of his background.
Cory Jordan - 5th Grade Teacher
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