A long way gone

1. A long way gone Memoir of a Boy Soldier By Ishmael Beah Lesson by Tiffany Mathes tamathes@gmail.com

2. Youtube video • Sierra Leone Rising • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um2QrOZTQEo&feature=player_embedded

3. Quick write • In five to seven sentences, explain how you believe where you live shapes the person that you are and ultimately become. (This could mean neighborhood, city, state, country-go as big or small scale as you like)

4. goal • Students will research the geography, culture, politics, and teenage voices from Sierra Leone to provide background context and personal connections to A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

5. Objective • Students will synthesize the information that they have gathered and then write a short, fictionalized memoir from a teenager's point of view in Sierra Leone.

6. Also… • It is important for students to start learning the much needed skill of interpersonal communication. The Jigsaw activity is meant to show the students that relying on others and working together in an academic way can be easy, fun, and helpful. • I want students to be able to relate to the main character (even though he is from a country much different than our own), and by showing them where the story takes place, it humanizes the people that we will meet in the book.

7. Curriculum standards • Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. • Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

8. What’s a memoir, anyways? • A memoir is very much like an autobiography (that is, a book about a person, written by the person), except that: • Rather than the story spanning a person’s lifetime, it focuses on an event or time in the author’s life that shaped his or her personality. • The narrative is not as rigid as an autobiography, which is typically chronological (in order from birth to old age).

9. Student task • You will be tasked with recording notes from one of the four topics we will cover in this slide show. Your group will exchange information at the end. • Green- Geographical Context • Yellow- Cultural Context • Blue- Political Context • Red- Youth Voice • 2. You will individually write a one page memoir from the voice of a teenager in Sierra Leone.

10. Memoir instructions • Put yourself in the shoes of a teenager living in the conflict.  Develop a narrator's voice and write a fictionalized memoir (no less than one page) from the point of view of a fictional teenager living in Sierra Leone during the conflict in the 1990's. • Are you male or female?  • What is your name?  • Where do you live?  • What do you do for fun? • Make sure there is geographical, cultural, political, and youth voice facts. Weave the facts into the story in a smooth way.

11. Get the grade • An A paper: • Demonstrates excellent understanding of geography, culture, politics, and teenagers of Sierra Leone through no less than 1 detailed example for each. • Voice of character is fully developed and complex. • Memoir is mistake free and presented with style.

12. closure • Context is so important! We want to know a little bit about the story to figure out why we should care about this book. We are also able to immediately engage in the content of the book because we already have a little bit of an idea of what to expect. So since knowing is half the battle, we’ll start reading the book tomorrow!