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Cherokee I Poetry Project. Britney Miller Claremont Elementary ESL. Context.
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Cherokee I Poetry Project Britney Miller Claremont Elementary ESL
Context • The Social Studies goal 2.01 for grade four of the North Carolina Standard course of student reads, “Locate and describe American Indians in North Carolina, past and present.” It is for this reason that the Claremont fourth grade teams spends an extensive amount of time researching, visiting and learning about the Cherokee Nation. • The field trip to the Cherokee reservation is the pinnacle event in fourth grade, so I thought I would use this experience as a foundation on which to build my poetry project. I want students to be able to understand and blend what they saw in real life on the reservation with the information they gather from nonfiction texts and resources.
Instructional Grouping • Since the beginning of the semester, I introduced and used the writer’s notebooks with my fourth grade ELL students during our pull out classes. These students range in English Proficiency levels. I have two fourth grade pull-out groups: low and high. We began our poetry adventure prior to our Cherokee project. The fourth grade students were learning about Johnny Appleseed so I thought I would jump in head first and use this topic as a way of introducing “I poetry” to my students. In short, it was a miniature poetry project but it gave the students valuable work experience in researching, phrasing, and editing I poetry.
Instructional Grouping Continued • When it became time to start my Cherokee project, I had to make a few adaptations to my current schedule. For starters, I chose to use only one of my fourth grade groups. This group is comprised of five students: three males and two females. Four of the five students are Hispanic. Time was also an issue that quickly presented itself as a problem. Normally I serve the students twice a week for thirty minutes. This was not an adequate amount of time for me to marinate the students in I poetry, help teach them how to do research, write a group poem, and then give them sufficient time to complete their individual projects
Instructional Grouping Continued • So I went to the fourth grade classroom teachers and asked to pull my “poetry group” every day until we were able to complete our project. One of the difficulties of being an ESL teacher is the time constraints we face when trying to plan a long term project with a short time span allotment.
Plan • When I started my introduction to I poetry I took an exploratory approach. I chose both published I poetry books: Atlantic, I am the Mummy Heb Nerfert, Dirty Laundry Pileand Sierra as well as graduate student I poetry listed on our class blog: “Elephant Mother”, “Jesse Owens”, and “Blackbeard”.
Plan Continued • Before reading any of these I set a premise for the students: What do these stories have in common? What is their purpose for being written this way? Then as I read the students would listen for clues that would lead them to their discovery of “I poetry”. I found this part of the project to be the most exhilarating.
Plan Continued • Here I had a tidbit of knowledge dangling over my children’s heads waiting for them to jump up and catch it for themselves. They were able to pick out the patterns of “I’s” in the poem as well as decide their narrators were in fact not the characters in the story. It was at that point I put a name with the face they had created. “I poetry” using the first person format to create a poetic story of person, character, or object either factual or fictional.
You’re invited on a quest to find knowledge about the Cherokee Nation Invitation We will read and learn about the Cherokee people. We will take what we learn and create a Multi-genre project on the Cherokee. Project #1: I poemWe will write an I poem on the “Trail of Tears” together then you will get to pick any Cherokee topic to write your own. Here are some Ideas:-a Cherokee boy -pottery - a blow gun-a Cherokee girl - basket - a canoe Page 2 Page 1
Project #2: DiaryWe will use the information we researched, and our experiences on our fieldtrip to pretend we are a Cherokee boy or girl, and write about one day in our lives. Project #3: Letter We write a letter to President Andrew Jackson telling him what we think about how the Cherokee people were treated. Project #4: RecipeWe will use the foods we learned the Cherokee ate and we will create our own recipes using one of their foods. Invitation Continued Page 3 Page 4
Pre-Assessment • To begin our Cherokee project, I gave the students several pre-project questions. They wrote their responses in their writer’s notebooks knowing these questions were just to determine a baseline for their knowledge on the topic. Prior to writing the questions, I knew the topic of our shared writing would be the “Trail of Tears” and I had a general idea of what topics the students were choosing for their individual projects. I tried to keep this in mind so that students would be able to demonstrate a larger amount of content knowledge growth over the course of the project’s completion.
Pre/Post AssessmentQuestions • Write everything you can think of that has to do with the Cherokee people in 2 minutes. • What jobs do Cherokee boys do? • What jobs do Cherokee girls do? • What is the “Trail of Tears” ? • List any names of Cherokee people. • List the tools that the Cherokee make to use every day.
Group Research • Using books I collected from our school library and other libraries in our county, the students and I worked collaboratively collecting facts from the expository text about the Trail of Tears. It was during this time that I would read excerpts from the text and allow students the opportunity to discover how to “weed out” the necessary information from everything else. I would redirect the students back to our topic to ensure they were picking the right type of information. I also explained that not all the facts we collected on the chart would necessarily make it into the poem. We compiled the facts onto a bubble chart with the Trail of Tears written in the middle and all the facts listed around.
Fact Transformation • One of the benefits of using Johnny Appleseed as a preemptor to our Cherokee project was that I could already apply new strategies to aid the students in areas I had just recently seen them struggle. When they were writing Johnny Appleseed I poems I noticed a trend where students could collect the facts but they weren’t sure how to transform the facts into ideas and emotions that would be appropriate for our “I poems”. So this time I used this as part of our group shared writing exercise.
Fact Transformation Continued • We used our facts bubble map and as a class transformed the facts into ideas and sentiments that would fit into our graphic organizer. An example of a fact transformation would go as follows: 4,000 Cherokee Indians died on the Trail of Tears I cried when 4,000 Cherokee died along the way and were buried in the tiny pieces of my broken heart. Since our perspective is from the viewpoint of the land itself we spent a lot of time contemplating what would be important to the land, and how the land would react to what was going on. This worked with the poetry devices I chose for this project: personification and onomatopoeia.
Personification Mini Lesson • Since the topic I chose was not human, I felt that personification was an appropriate poetic feature to include in one of my mini lessons. As we were transforming facts, I stopped and we revisited the book Sierra by Diane Siebert. As we reread the story I would stop and ask “Can a mountain do this?” By the third stop they were able to pick out things as I read without me first prompting them. Then I introduced the word personification; I pointed out it had the word person inside because it is something a person can do, but an object or animal can’t.
Personification Mini Lesson • So then we went back to our graphic organizer and looked at where we could insert personification. I was very pleased at how naturally my students took to this poetic feature. In the past I have seen lessons where personification was given as a definition and then students were asked to underline examples from a given text. The outcome of course was exponentially different. Students were not able to identify personification using the definition they were given much less apply it to their own writing.
Onomatopoeia Mini Lesson • Another poetic feature I thought would lend itself well to our Cherokee project was the use of onomatopoeia. So we revisited the book Dirty Laundry Pile, we looked specifically at “Washing Machine”. Then I had the students tell me what they liked the most about the poem. They said they liked the different funny words, they make funny sounds”. That is when I gave them the word onomatopoeia.
Onomatopoeia Mini Lesson • We then read more poems from the book and tried to pick out any onomatopoeia like in “Crayon Dance” and ________. After the students had some time practicing finding onomatopoeias in other poems we went back to the graphic organizer to see if we could add any to our shared poem. For example: I hear the galloping hooves, ba-da-domp, ba-da-domp, ba-da-domp, of the hunter’s horses as they try to feed their starving families since the soldiers didn’t feed them.
Individual Research • As part of the students’ individual research, I decided to use our ESL class blog/wiki. Each student has their own wiki page where they not only have access to research websites but they can also write down the facts they find on both websites and in nonfictional library texts. The first day of student individual research was taxing because it was our first time using the wiki/blog so we were going over the procedures of logging in and editing our wiki pages. I felt that using the wiki/blog during the individual research phase not only would be of high interest to the students but it would also provide them an opportunity to develop their digital literacy skills.
Individual Research • Prior to the first day of research I searched the internet for appropriate, reliable, and user friendly websites for the students to use during their research. Sites that I found useful I created links on my wiki page so all the students would have to do was click the hyperlink. I felt this would save a lot of time typing in web addresses and prevent students from getting onto a site they shouldn’t by accident.
Miguel’s Blow Gun I Poem 1st Draft
Cynthia’s Cherokee Girl I Poem 1st Draft
Miguel’s Blow Gun I Poem 2nd Draft
Discussion of Pre/Post Test • I was fairly surprised with the post test results. There were several questions where students had more information on the pre-test than the post test. • But overall every child improved in their overall facts from the pre to the post test. I especially happy with the growth that both Miguel and Cynthia have made through this project. Miguel grew from 6 facts to 12. Cynthia grew from 11 facts to 17. That is why I chose their poems for analysis.
Discussion of Pre/Post Test Continued • Since the subjects of the I poems were so diverse I chose questions that covered most all subjects. When I redo this project in the future, I will only require students to answer questions regarding their research topic. • I was tickled most with David’s response to Q 4- the trail of tears. He wrote, “it’s a long story with lots of information”. Obviously he’s correct, I just thought it interesting for him to make this statement in lieu of giving any specific facts.
Miguel’s Poetry • I have been the most amazed at Miguel’s progress throughout this project. He has been able to research, find facts, and create honest thoughts to demonstrate the life of a Cherokee blow gun. • Although his poem is not yet at the published stage, he had 9 content units where only 8 were required. • I especially enjoyed the emotions and concerns he included in his poem. He did a wonderful job embodying the desires, fears, and thoughts of a blowgun.
Miguel’s Poetry Continued • Not all student could use both onomatopoeia and personification due to subject matter. • Miguel used two examples of personification. • I cry when the Cherokee man chopped me down and dried me and straightened me. • I am thirsty and hot because they put a fire under me.
Miguel’s Poetry Continued • Miguel used one example of onomatopoeia. • I hear fishes flapping in the blue river, flip-flop flip-flop, when they are swimming. • Both uses of poetic language were used correctly in the proper context.
Cynthia’s Poetry • Since Cynthia’s topic, a Cherokee girl, was already human she was unable to use personification in her I poem. • Due to time constraints she was only able to complete the first draft prior to the deadline. • She was able to include 9 content units in her poem, with only 8 required. My most favorite aspect of her writing was the personality she added to it.
