Archive for the 'Forced Immigration' Category

Looking Back at Forced Immigration

Published on March 9, 2010 in Amistad and Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

Having studied many forms of immigration to the United States, you are well versed in the history of many people. You know of the Europeans coming through Ellis Island, the Asian immigrants coming through Angel Island, and the contemporary experiences of the immigrants you have interviewed. As we finish up our forced immigration unit, you have learned about the tragic history of African immigration spanning the 250 years of slavery. Throughout our study we have focused on the immigrant’s old country, journey, and new country, and how each of these play important roles in their experiences. Today in writing skills, we will look at what we have learned from Ms. Edinger’s time in Sierra Leone, Margru and the Amistad, and the Gullah people of South Carolina  through the lens of these three themes. I would like you to write up what we have brainstormed in class, and answer this question in a well thought out post:

Using Sierra Leone, Margru, and the Gullah study, what have we learned about the African’s old country/ies, their journey across the Atlantic, and their life in America?

Some resources:

Your Post on Africa is My Home

Published on February 9, 2010 in Forced Immigration and Margru. 0 Comments

Now that you’ve read Africa is My Home you are ready to write a post about the story. Hopefully you will spend some time thinking about this and writing about it. I can tell you I am very, very, very eager to read these!

1. To start, come up with a direction for your post. (You may well want to use some of the notes you have in your little booklet for this.) Here are some ideas, but you may have another one:

  • Respond to a particular part in the story.
  • Respond to the literary devices (similes, metaphors, etc.).
  • Respond to the various images used.
  • What in Margru’s story surprised you? What did you learn?
  • Comparison to your oral history? To Amistad Rising? Something else?
  • Some consider this a Cinderella story — if you think this and want to write about it, why?
  • Something that the editor, Sarah Ketchersid told you that struck a chord.
  • Is there something more you want to know?

2. Once you have a direction begin with a good topic sentence, at least five sentences in the middle, and end with a conclusion.  As I told you — NO SUMMARIES, please (as I know this story well already).  The only place where you describe the story should be in your topic sentence. The rest will be a response/reflection/review of it.

3. Proofread as always.

4. Post!

As I wrote above, I am very eager to read these!

Africa is My Home: The Story of Sarah Margru Kinson

Published on February 3, 2010 in Forced Immigration, Historical Fiction and Margru. 0 Comments

margru.jpg

As part of our study of historical fiction, I read aloud Amistad Rising by Veronica Chambers with illustrations by Paul Lee. Now we are going to look at the Amistad story again through the eyes of one of its participants — Sarah Margru Kinson. The Amistad captives were mostly Mende, people who live in a part of Africa that is now in the country of Sierra Leone where I lived many years ago as a teacher for the Peace Corps.

Through Sarah Margru’s story, a story I’ve slightly fictionalized and told here (I will give you the username and password in class to access it), I hope you will have a deeper sense of forced immigration. So, here is what I want you to do:

As you read Margru’s story, write notes and responses in the chapbook I will give you on these things:

Literary Stuff Here you can jot down any words or that seem descriptive, poetic, or otherwise give a literary sense.

Historical Stuff
Here you can jot down words, phrases, and titles of images that are clearly from history. (Be sure to include the images as most are primary sources and you may want to use them later in your blog posts and project.)

Response
Here you need to write how the part you read made you feel, questions you may have, or anything else you want.

When you are done reading with all this you will be writing a reflective blog post and also doing a poetry project related to Margru’s story and the Amistad.

Africa is My Home: The Story of Sarah Margru Kinson

Published on January 28, 2010 in Forced Immigration and Margru. 0 Comments

margru.jpg

As part of our study of historical fiction, I read aloud Amistad Rising by Veronica Chambers with illustrations by Paul Lee. Now we are going to look at the Amistad story again through the eyes of one of its participants — Sarah Margru Kinson. The Amistad captives were mostly Mende, people who live in a part of Africa that is now in the country of Sierra Leone where I lived many years ago as a teacher for the Peace Corps.

Through Sarah Margru’s story, a story I’ve slightly fictionalized and told here (I will give you the username and password in class to access it), I hope you will have a deeper sense of forced immigration. So, here is what I want you to do:

As you read Margru’s story, write notes and responses in the chapbook I will give you. Divide each page up into three parts (I’ll show you how in class) so that you can take notes on these things:

Literary Stuff Here you can jot down any words or that seem descriptive, poetic, or otherwise give a literary sense.

Historical Stuff
Here you can jot down words, phrases, and titles of images that are clearly from history. (Be sure to include the images as most are primary sources and you may want to use them later in your blog posts and project.)

Response
Here you need to write how the part you read made you feel, questions you may have, or anything else you want.

When you are done reading with all this you will be writing a blog post and also doing a poetry project related to Margru’s story and the Amistad.

Amistad Poetry

Published on February 9, 2009 in Amistad and Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

On Friday we were honored to hear the distinguished poet Elizabeth Alexander share her Amistad epic with us. (You can read it all in this article.) I thought she was wonderful and hope you did too!  As I told you already, I first got to know this remarkable poem when Natasha Trethewey was at Dalton a couple of years ago. After sharing some of it with us, she helped us create a persona poem using the following description of Margru (from one of the original profiles of the Amisated captives in John Barber’s book).

Margru

What I remember of home is this:

green – green mangoes, green snakes, green bananas:
brown – my mother, my father, myself, the tree
trunks, the brown earth, the color of my language,
Mende,
the only language I had
to describe these things.

Often I think of
how I came to be here:

my father pawning me, waving goodbye,
his face crumpled, tightened, looking
away from me.

I felt my captor’s white, cold hand
tighten around my wrist as if
he were a solid ghost taking me away.

Now I wish to see again
the green rice fields,
my father’s brown face,
clouds in the sky —
the only white things,

to hear someone speaking my language,
someone saying

Margru.

*******

Now I hope you will be inspired to create your own poems. Take a look at the Amistad captive profiles here. Perhaps you want to do a persona poem about one of them?  Or a found poem (taking words from another place as she did with  “Other Cargo”) ? Or something else?

Write your poem as you wish. Revise. Proofread. Show a teacher.

Then create a collage with your poem in it. Here are some from an earlier to give you an idea where to go. (Of course, I hope yours are completely unique and different!)

Finally, you will scan in your poem, post it on your blog, and I will put all the collages on the bulletin board outside the classroom!

Your Margru Post

Published on February 6, 2009 in Amistad, Blog Posts, Forced Immigration and Margru. 0 Comments

Now that you’ve read Margu you are ready to write a post about the story. Hopefully you will spend some time thinking about this and writing about it. We hope when your blogs are public to write something about this on Ms. Edinger’s blog as she’s done before so that people from all over the world come to see what you have to say. (Keep in mind that your readers will not have read Ms. Edinger’s story as it is not yet published and only on a blog for you.)

1. To start, come up with a direction for your post. Here are some ideas, but you may have another one:

  • Respond to a particular part in the story.
  • Respond to the literary devices (similes, metaphors, etc.).
  • Respond to the various images used.
  • What in Margru’s story surprised you? What did you learn?
  • Comparison to your oral history? To Amistad Rising?
  • Some consider this a Cinderella story — if you think this and want to write about it, why?
  • Is there something more you want to know?

2. Once you have a direction begin with a good topic sentence, some examples, and end with a conclusion.  I expect a truly excellent paragraph with AT LEAST five sentences (a topic sentence, three in the middle at least, and a concluding one).  WE DO NOT WANT A SUMMARY.  The only place where you describe the story should be in your topic sentence. The rest will be a response/reflection/review of it.

3. Proofread as always.

4. Post!

As you can imagine, we are all eager to read these!

Africa is My Home: The Story of Sarah Margru Kinson

Published on January 28, 2009 in Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

margru.jpg

Today I read aloud Amistad Rising by Veronica Chambers with illustrations by Paul Lee and talked with you about this famous event. Now we are going to look at the Amistad story again through the eyes of one of its participants — Sarah Margru Kinson. The Amistad captives were mostly Mende, people who live in a part of Africa that is now in the country of Sierra Leone where I lived many years ago as a teacher for the Peace Corps.

Through Sarah Margru’s story, a story I’ve slightly fictionalized and told here (I will give you the username and password in class to access it), I hope you will have a deeper sense of forced immigration.  I also think you will learn something about the tricky experience of writing about a real event. Should I fictionalize it or should I make it true? The version you will read is one I did for one publisher, but now another one wants it, but in a dfferent form. And so I am currently revising the story  as nonfiction.  It is for Dianne Hess, the Scholastic editor who was here a few weeks ago. So not only will you be learning about Margru and the Amistad story, but something about what it is to write, rewrite, write, and rewrite again!

As you read Margru’s story, I want you to  write notes and responses in the chapbook I will give you. Consider the following for your notes:

Literary Stuff Here you can jot down any words or that seem descriptive, poetic, or otherwise give a literary sense.

Historical Stuff
Here you can jot down words, phrases, and titles of images that are clearly from history. (Be sure to include the images as most are primary sources and you may want to use them later in your blog posts and project.)

Response
Here you need to write how the part you read made you feel, questions you may have, or anything else you want.

When you are done reading with all this you will be writing a blog post and also doing a poetry project (using Elizabeth Alexander’s poems) related to Margru’s story and the Amistad.

Olaudah Equiano

Published on January 21, 2009 in Forced Immigration and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Today I told you about Olaudah Equiano who was around ten years old when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. After many years and experiences (good, bad, and horrible), he was able to buy his freedom and eventually wrote his autobiography to let others know about the horrors of slavery. I then began reading aloud  The Kidnapped Prince, an adaptation of Olaudah’s autobiography for children by Ann Cameron.

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As I mentioned to you, there has been some debate as to whether or not Olaudah was born in Africa or not.  Check out this link for some reasons this could or could not be true.  The author of that website concludes,

“The bottom line is that we just don’t know. As the above table shows, there is evidence on both sides of the debate. Just about the only thing we can say for certain is that, when he was younger, Equiano told people he was from Carolina, but when he was older, he told people he was from Africa. Whether you believe the younger Equiano or the older Equiano is entirely up to you…

Next I will show you a multimedia presentation of Olaudah’s description of life in Africa which consisted of images from my own time in Africa, other relevant images, maps, sound, and much more.

The Gullah

Published on February 27, 2008 in Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

Today we are going to get a taste of the Gullah people.  And since Ms. Younge knows a lot about them, we are going to her class blog to learn more.

Amistad Poetry: Part II

Published on February 21, 2008 in Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

Last year’s class was privliged to work with the distinguished poet Natasha Trethewey. After guiding them through a close reading of some of the same Amistad poems we just looked at, she helped us create one of our own.

Inspired by the above description of Margru (one of the original profiles of the Amisated captives in John Barber’s book): we created the following persona poem.

Margru

What I remember of home is this:

green – green mangoes, green snakes, green bananas:
brown – my mother, my father, myself, the tree
trunks, the brown earth, the color of my language,
Mende,
the only language I had
to describe these things.

Often I think of
how I came to be here:

my father pawning me, waving goodbye,
his face crumpled, tightened, looking
away from me.

I felt my captor’s white, cold hand
tighten around my wrist as if
he were a solid ghost taking me away.

Now I wish to see again
the green rice fields,
my father’s brown face,
clouds in the sky —
the only white things,

to hear someone speaking my language,
someone saying

Margru.

******* 

Now I want you to create your own poems. Take a look at the Amistad profiles I am going to hand out to you. Perhaps you want to do a persona poem about one of them? Or a found poem like “Other Cargo.” Or something else.

Write your poem as you wish. Revise. Proofread. Show a teacher.

Then create a collage with your poem in it. Here are some from last year’s class to give you an idea where to go. (Of course, I hope yours are completely unique and different!)

Finally, you will scan in your poem, post it on your blog, and I will put all the collages on the bulletin board outside the classroom!