How would the art of puppetry tie into a unit using African American children's poems to explore friendship and feelings? The art of ventriloquism has been in my teaching repertoire for twenty plus years and as a result many characters have evolved along with my first grade curriculum. For example, Willie Sunday, a favorite in the classroom, is an encouragement to all and is compelling in bringing the best out in most of us. His main trait in the classroom is his expertise in phonics, or lack of it, as he misses letters and letter sounds to the squeals and delight of the children. Tuesday's Cup of Sugar, Alphabet Thursday, and Blue Monday have all gained a stronghold in the classroom through their initiation of the writer's workshop, story mapping, interactive writing, and read aloud stories. Miss Wednesday Delight's expertise allows her to bring new poems to our classroom on a weekly basis. She aids the children in discussion and reading of the poems, and sometimes gets their assistance for ideas to various lines or words in the poems. All of the puppets contain unique personalities, interesting voice variations and a flare for bright colorful appearances. Along with the other puppets, we dare not forget Friday Funtastic who sports a red hat, green vest, and bright yellow fur - a duck who speaks in a somewhat distorted voice.
Although my puppets are for the most part full size ventriloquist's puppets (i.e. dummies with either soft sculptured or hard plastic faces) hand puppets could just as easily be used for introducing or reading the poetry. Omitting puppetry entirely from the lessons will not weaken the unit. If one does not wish to use puppetry, the teacher can easily adapt the lessons by introducing the poetry and stories in class.
With all of these characters in mind, Miss Wednesday Delight would continue to introduce our African American poetry on a weekly basis. However, all of her friends, (the puppets) would be used at various times to aid in the discussions and writings of our theme, "Feelings and Friendship." Puppetry will also be used in our art center where the children make their own puppets and write stories and poems on a more spontaneous basis within a less structured setting. For example, the children are given examples or ideas and then given the option of choosing and making their own crafts and stories. In other words, the teacher is more of a facilitator and helps to guide the children once they have made their selection.
A good starting place for my unit will be Eloise Greenfield's poem "Honey I Love." She speaks in very simple terms about love and that love must start with ME. The children like to write about things they love. They will enjoy writing a poem about love and listing those things that are dear to them. They could end the poem by saying, "But I especially love…" Certainly,
No Mirrors in My Nana's House
will be read in conjunction with Greenfield's poem to stimulate the children in seeing beauty and love around them. The paintings of people in the book by Synthia Saint James are void of any eyes. The children look past their surroundings and experience beauty through the eyes of a trusted older family member. In other words, love becomes the brightness of the sun clouding out those things that could control and destroy one's joy for living. The group Sweet Honey in the Rock sings the lyrics in this book. Music in African American culture articulates many feelings that children can relate to in meaningful ways. The children will enjoy singing along with Sweet Honey in the Rock as well as making up some additional lines to the song. Miss Wednesday and her friends will also aid the children in a discussion with questions such as: What are some things that the children in the story did not see because they did not have eyes? Do you think that it made a difference because they could not see these things? Why? What did they experience instead of seeing the bad things? For example, how did the dust feel? What did the noise in the hallway sound like? How did the trash on the floor feel?
Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky
by Faith Ringgold also tells of trust and love of others as she relates the story of Harriet Tubman and her flight for freedom. Perhaps that is why slave rag dolls rarely if ever had eyes on their faces. How could one hold a doll that expresses joy, love, and magic when they could see all of the horrible, atrocious surroundings of slavery? It would be better that they had no eyes and one could pretend with them only beholding the beauty of the inner soul in expressing love, trust, and security. The puppets will help to stimulate a discussion about fear. The children will relate in their writings, either fictional or real, feelings of fear and how those feelings dissipated. We could stitch rag dolls or make puppets of our own with no eyes and write stories about them, pretending we were only seeing beautiful things in our surroundings.
Nikki Giovanni expresses so eloquently her feelings of security with family and friends in the poem "The Reason I Like Chocolate" when she writes about snuggling with Mommy and her big sister during a scary movie or licking her fingers after eating chocolate and nobody tells her that it is not polite. The puppets will model their writing after Giovanni's poem. Then the children will write a poem in class and illustrate it.
Langston Hughes writes many poems expressing feelings of hope, joy, and love. In his poem of "Dreams," Langston tells the reader to hold fast to their dreams for if they die they are like a bird with a broken wing that cannot fly or like frozen snow in a barren field. In Faith Ringgold's book
If a Bus could Talk
, Ringgold tells the story of Rosa Parks through a talking bus. Dreams usually blossom when one is sleeping, has their eyes closed or is not clearly focused on their surroundings. Rosa Parks could not have seen her dream come true had she only focused on her wrongful situation. Young children like to dream. They like to tell what they want to be when they grow up - how they will help the world to be a better place. They will write a simple poem of dreams, naming one thing on each line (e.g. I dream of…) and then ending the poem by saying, "But when I am big, I will dream of…")
Langston's simple poem of "Hope" speaks volumes when he writes about feeling lonely and he really doesn't know why, but eventually the feelings go away. The children will center their discussion on such questions as: How does it feel to be lonely? When do you feel lonely? Why? Do the feelings go away? How?
Ashley Bryan's collection of beautiful African American poetry suggests another way to work with the alphabet. She took complete poems and fragments from others, capturing many feelings from the African American culture. In each poem, she centered on a word that was relevant to the theme and capitalized it according to the ABC's in the alphabet. For example, Lucille Clifton writes a poem about love; the word "Leaves" is capitalized because it pertains to the main theme in Clifton's poem and follows the main word, "Kojo" found in the previous poem. We could make a list of the words on chart paper in class, and the children could recite them helping to increase their sight vocabulary for reading. The list would look like this…And, Black, Comes, Dear, Each, Freedom… Willie Sunday would love to read the list, make mistakes and have the children correct his errors.
Literacy will play an important role in every facet of my unit. In addition to hearing and reading the poetry and stories in the classroom, the children will be paired with a fourth grader from our proposed Beecher team. The first graders along with their fourth grade buddies will compose poetry and share an illustration in class.
Of course, Miss Wednesday Delight and her friends have an array of activities planned for the children. African American history contains a rich heritage of traditions and customs. The children will be given the opportunity to participate in spirituals that were sung during worship services and then to feast upon some of the traditional foods that were relished after Sunday morning services. We may even try jumping a broomstick as the slaves did during their wedding ceremony as a symbol of beginning homemaking for the new couple. We may rely on some of the grandmothers and great-grandmothers to teach us a song or dance, perhaps even a few of their favorite games that were passed onto them by their parents.
A culminating activity will be a drama production based on the story
No Mirrors in My Nana's House
. (See the appendix.) The production will be rehearsed in our Extended Day Academy and produced on stage for a school wide assembly sometime near the end of the school year. The culminating activity will be part of a team effort in which three teachers from L. W. Beecher School will center their units upon a common theme, "African American Poetry: A focus on Family and Tradition; Feelings and Friendship, and Pride and Protest." The team will involve a first grade, second grade, and a fourth grade.
