Sandra K. Friday
This eight-week unit will give the students I teach at the Annex the opportunity to develop their geographical literacy, commencing with exploration of their own neighborhoods as
place
and
space
, and then widening the circle to take in
all
of New Haven. A recently published guide to New Haven should be helpful in planning local field trips, giving students an overview of their city. Most of my students rarely travel outside of their immediate neighborhoods. Therefore, the first creative arts activity I plan to implement is a student-designed alphabet book that features various geographies of
place
and
space
, beginning with their neighborhoods, and then expanding to all of New Haven. During this activity, students will consider the assumptions they make about their geographical and social space, which will provide a framework for exploring the films and literature in the unit. While it is not necessary that the book be specifically an
alphabet
book, it gives the book structure: twenty-six letters, A to Z.
Their own neighborhoods will make up their first alphabet book, making an alphabet of
places
on the maps of their neighborhoods, then, expanding this same book to include their own details about their relationship to these
places
, making it an alphabet of
space
as well. To get started, I will explain to the students that we are going to develop an alphabet directory of their neighborhoods. I will assign a "Do now!" to be created in the first ten minutes of each class period for the first week of school. Students will keep an on-going list of the places and streets they went to or passed by on a regular basis, mapping the neighborhood in this linear fashion. This activity will raise students' visual awareness of their daily activities. At the beginning of the following week, they will brainstorm on the board all the places they came up with and add any they think of at the moment. Then, I will assign each student, using his or her own list and the collective list, to make up an urban alphabet of places and streets which are part of his or her daily or routine living. Part of the assignment will be to vary the scale of their entries that make up the alphabet so that some entries may be as personal as their bedrooms and others may be as public as nine squares. Obviously, not everyone will be familiar with every site in the brainstorm, and it isn't necessary that they be. Actually, this in itself will demonstrate that people's daily lives travel different paths.
Next, students will assemble the alphabet book, following the instructions in
The Young Author's Do-It-Yourself Book
listed in the
Working Bibliography
, and begin to give serious thought as to how to represent each site named in their alphabet. They could consider simply making a drawing of the place or street named (perhaps including people they see on this street), or they could make a collage that represents it, or they could use a photograph of the place. They will need to think creatively as to how they want to represent the twenty-six sites in their book.
Then, they will describe, in a few sentences, their relationship to each site in the book. For example, if "H" is represented by their home, they will write a few sentences about: (a) what they like doing there, (b) how they feel when they are there, and, perhaps, (c) what that place means to them. Following these guidelines for each site, they will then add these descriptions to the book, making it a book of subjective
spaces
rather than just a book of objective
places
they know. These are the sites where students have come to know what to expect.
It is here, when the students begin to describe their relationship to each site, that they will do another kind of brainstorming, answering the question, "What are the assumptions we make in those subjective geographical
spaces
that are familiar to us?" I discuss this at length in the section:
A framework for comparing the geography of place and space in the films and literature
. First the students must brainstorm what is essential to their expectations in any given subjective
space
. If the
space
is "home," their expectations will likely include things such as shelter in which they feel a degree of comfort, clothing in which they are warm and
hip
, food they are used to, transportation options, ways of getting the money they need to buy what they need, electronic devices that keep them current, (see the section to which I referred for a more extensive list). They will enter these items on the left side of a graphic organizer, with a brief description of what their assumptions are. For example, on the left side, they might write: shelter that is warm and safe. On the right side they will write a couple of sentences describing specifically what shelter means for them and who else they assume will be sheltered there. They will do this for all of their assumptions. These assumptions about their subjective
spaces
will play a role and be a frame of reference throughout the unit as they explore, through the films and literature, assumptions that people make about their
spaces
in other places in the world. They also are likely to use, in their alphabet books, descriptions they have written on their graphic organizers. Once my students understand that their own assumptions depend upon their geographical and social
space
, they will be better equipped to see how this works for other people in other places in the world, who are, in this way, exactly like them.
Next, moving out of their own neighborhoods, students will gather and research New Haven sites for a more expanded alphabet book, at first, of
places
: "E is for East Rock that offers a view of most of New Haven and Long Island too." "C is for Cinque whose statue is seen in front of Town Hall on the New Haven Green." As they identify places in New Haven that work in an alphabet book, they will visit as many of these as possible on field trips, making them somewhat akin to
spaces
. As students search for locations and sites to fill in the alphabet, they will also be learning the history and significance of them. "N," for example, could represent the Nine Squares of the original New Haven. These Nine Squares are represented in many places in New Haven where students could see them. The New Haven Savings Bank at the corner of Church and Elm has a large map of the Nine Squares on the wall of its lobby. The
Greater New Haven Visitor's Guidebook 2002
has a full page, mapping the Nine Squares with the New Haven Green in the center. On a field trip, a bus could drive us around the perimeter of the Nine Squares.
With each letter and site, students will render a drawing, photograph, or collage on the opposite page. These alphabet books could be relatively sophisticated for their peers or they could be designed for children. Art activities continue to be an invaluable medium by which my students open themselves to learning.