| 1.
Readiness
a. Motivation:
“Do you know who you are? Where are your ancestors from? What
religion are you?” (Students can share some responses, Lutheran,
Methodist, Germany, Irish). “From those responses do you think
that really who you are and how do you know that that is who you are?”
(Students can share some responses). “Keep thinking about these
questions while we read this poem called ME.”
ME
By Sara B. Busdiecker
What are you anyway?
Black? White? Mixed? Latina? Native American?
Mulatto? Caribbean? Puerto Rican? Gringa?
Middle Eastern? Central American? Venezuelan?
Italian? Greek? Biracial? Cape Verdean? Spanish?
Cuban? Irish? Triguena? Jewish? Hispanic? Morena?
Multiracial? Colombian? Eastern European? African?
Mestizo? Brazilian?....
I’m all of the above because you think I am
(depending on the clothes I’m wearing, the company
I’m keeping, the language I’m speaking, the food
I’m eating, the style of my hair, the shade of my
Skin, the country I’m in), and I’m none of the above.
What am I?
I’m a question. I’m an answer.
I’m a resister of racial classifications,
A defier of ethnic designations,
A list of possible labels,
And a navigator of niches that don’t quite fit.
I’m a petitioner for no more pigeonholing,
Who loves to keep you guessing.
I’m a medley, a mixture,
A collage of colors,
A blended body shifting shades,
A cultural chameleon
Of ambiguous ancestry and hybrid heritage.
I’m a creator of my own category,
I’m inventor of my own identity.
I’m mixed, but I’m not mixed up.
I’m not about denying a part of me.
I’m not about trying to pass.
I’m no sell out, no traitor,
No wanna-be, no mutt.
I’m no tragedy, and no exotic other.
….If anything, I’m just another hue of you.
I’m not about confusion
(unless you mean other people’s confusion).
I’m not about anomaly or impurity,
About halfness or being in between.
I’m no less of one thing that I am of another.
I’m no poster child for interracial harmony,
No model for miscegenated humanity.
I’m not messy mingling,
And I’m not what’s meant by the melting pot.
I’m no jungle-fever rainbow baby,
No icon for interbreeding.
I’m not about trying to be better than anyone else,
Or trying to be different.
What I’m about is being all of what I am….
Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
I’m black + white + I don’t know what else =
both/neither/other, “half” transracially adopted,
descendant of people I’ve never met. A freckled,
brown-skinned, curly/straight/fuzzy brown-haired
(with some black, blond, and orange thrown in),
German-American raised, Spanish-speaking gringa
And multicolorful part-time expatriate. I’m mixed,
What I am is ME.
“From the sounds of this poem, it seems like a person can identify
with many different groups at one time, is this true?”
b. Tapping and Developing
Background of Experience:
“How do people go about finding out who they are? How do people
know or figure out what they want to be when they get older?”
(Students share.) “This is what we are going to figure out in
our lesson, what identity really is, and how people go about to get
that identity.”
c. Concept Development:
"There are a few words that you need to know the meanings to, please
write these in your notebooks so you can refer back to them later if
you need to. The first one is IDENTITY which is a sense
of oneself as a unique person. The second is IDENTITY DIFFUSION
which is a term used by Erikson for an uncertainty about who one is
or where he or she is going. The last is GROUP IDENTITY VS.
ALIENATION which is another idea of Erikson's in which early
adolescents either belong to a group or feel lost. These are some general
words that will be talked about more in your reading for today, but
we won't talk about a lot."
d. Purpose for reading:
“Today you will be reading from your textbooks to be informed
about identity. In your text you will learn about different states of
identity and how a person is classified in that specific state.”
2. Silent Reading:
Students will read pages 282-286 independently. While reading students
will fill out a 2 x 2 box graph (graphic organizer)
and in each box place the identity state and write some descriptors
in the box of each identity state. (Before they begin reading I will
model on the board how the students need to fill out their graphic
organizer).
Differentiation: Students
that have trouble reading may listen to the reading on tape. Also
for students who have trouble writing or want to they can fill out
the graphic organizer on the computer instead of by hand.
3. Discussion:
After reading students will compare and contrast their 2 x 2 graphs with
a partner adding any additional information they may have missed from
the reading.
4. Rereading:
Students will/may need to review and reread the chart on pg. 286 about
Marcia’s identity states.
5. Follow-Up (Reinforcement):
“For tomorrow you need to write a short story about a person and
describe them and their life by putting them in one of Marcia’s
states. You must use the descriptors of that state in your story to help
identity which state they are in. When you hand that in you will also
need to turn in your 2 x 2 graphs.”
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