AMERICA MY NEW HOME: AFRICAN REFUGEES

Lori Vanden Berghe

BUILDING BRIDGES WITH

MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE

Rationale:

Sharing our stories helps us to understand our common humanity. Whether there is a picture book to peer into or a voice that brings the action to life, children of all ages long for a story vividly told.

The week before Thanksgiving 2011, I had the pleasure of visiting the Macedonia Family Resource Center (MFRC) in High Point, NC which helps underserved refugee parents in the area improve their literacy and life skills while also assisting their children for success in school through structured tutoring sessions.

During that tour of the MFRC, I met four children ages 7 – 11 who came to America from war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East. I chose these books with those youngsters in mind with the hope of sharing the stories with them upon a future visit to the Community Center.

However, High Point, NC is not an isolated area where families such as these are in need of assimilation skills and support. The lessons I am including here are for students in Grade 3.

Books:

Which continent do you call home?

Whoever You AreAuthor:  Mem FoxIllustrator:  Leslie StaubPublisher: HMH Books,Copyright:  2007ISBN-10:  0152060308Age Level: 3 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Reading Rainbow Books

Summary: This book represents what is common among us all: our humanity. Despite our differences we share pain, joy, and love. The book’s illustrations are bold and brightly colored making their way from culture to culture and across generations to depict our similarities.

Response:  A book for its simple message: Our skin may be different colors, our religions, our cultures different too, but we are all the same: human beings on the planet Earth.  I have found in my work with teens that they get so wrapped up in their social scenes that they forget a whole world exists outside of their immediate circle.  I strive to take off their blinders and open their view to the world we live in, presenting basic philosophical questions so they may develop their own philosophy of life. Not some rappers view or of their peers, but their own. This book is just that widely loved.  It can be used in a high school class, or it can be used in a third grade class.  

Use in class:  In order to have a conversation about themes in literature, students must understand that the author is conveying a message about the human condition- telling something about humans and life. This book can open a Grand Conversation about some of those conditions. For this collection, I begin with this book to highlight the Big Idea I will be refering to constantly: communities are made and influenced by diverse cultures.Finally, students will create a collage of their own from images either hand-rendered, magazines, or digital photos that depicts their own definition of diversity. These will be displayed around the classroom. 

Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of SudanMary Williams (Author)R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator)Publisher: Lee & Low BooksCopyright: 2005Reading Level : Ages 7 and UpISBN-10: 1584302321Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Summary:  This is a fictional story  about Garang, an eight year old boy who tends cattle for his father in Southern Sudan.  One day while tending the herd, Civil War breaks out and Garang’s village  is pummeled with bullets.   He runs to hide under the cover of the forest.  After the shooting stops, Garang returns to his village and finds everyone gone.  He begins to wander the road away from his home and meets other boys who could not find  their  families. Many, many boys were on  the  road;  the oldest were fifiteen.    They had  to  learn  to  care  for  one  another  as  they  left  Sudan  and  crossed  into  Ethiopia for safety. Many boys did not survive the journey.  They were lucky to find a refugee camp to stay  for  a while,  but  then war broke out  in Ethopia and  they were  forced  to walk  into Kenya. The boys grew older in the camp in Kenya, but life was hard there too.  Finally, the United States offered the 3800 Sudanese Lost Boys a home.

Response:    The  fact  that  we  have  so  many  displaced  families  who  have  fled  wartorn countries  in our own communities  is enough reason to share  this book with students.   The  author  is  careful  to word  the  facts  of  death  in  such  a way  that will  not  scare  the young, but will open a discussion about  the  trials and  suffering  those  in  the  situations face. Some students may feel compelled to share their own stories.  But as the title says, this  is a story of hope; it  is also a story of faith, courage, and love.    In Garang’s father’s words: “Your heart and mind are strong. There is nothing you cannot do.”  This story will open opportunities  to  talk about how education,  faith, determination, and hope  in  the future are a part of all our lives.

Suggested Use in the Classroom: This book fits nicely as an interdisciplinary lesson in social studies and language arts as illustrated below:

In the Small, Small NightJane Kurtz (Author)Rachel Isadora (Illustrator)Publisher: AmistadCopyright: 2005Reading Level: Ages 5 and UpISBN-10: 0066238137Washington Post: One of Top Five Best Picture Books (2005

Summary: “What if a lizard crawled in my suitcase? What if the people in my new school laugh at me? What if Grandmother back in Ghana forgets me?” These are questions Kofi sits up worrying about on his first night in America. But his sister, Abena knows a secret to help calm them and bring them closer to “home.” She begins telling her brother folktales from their homeland.

Response: We all can relate to the stories passed on to us around a fire, a family table, or before bedtime. They live in us and we tell them to the next generation in our care. Stories are our common thread in the larger human tapestry. The short tales in this book do the same. Children will love the messages, “Listen with your ears open, and “ Hand come, hand go.”

Classroom Use: Looking at the illustrations: children will easily recognize the pictures that correspond to the folktales and the ones that relate to the actual story and be able to compare their qualities (folktales: vibrant and warm, like Ghana; in America: cool and dark). They should be able to write theme sentences that deal with the overcoming fears of a new place, going to a new school, and the importance of family. This is a good jumping off place to share folktales from other cultures represented in the class. Perhaps La Llorona from the Latin community, or Coyote the Trickster of the Native Americans. Students could ask their parents to tell them a story from their youth to illustrate and retell to the class.

Activities:

Address prior knowledge with an interview before reading these books:

In pairs: Interview your partner like a reporter and write down their answers to your questions. You will report to the class how your partner answered the questions:

•Did you ever take a long trip with your family? Where?•What did you do to plan for the trip? What kinds of things did you take with you?•How long did it take to reach your destination?•Have you ever been lost?  How did you feel? What did you do? Who helped you?•Is there a story that someone in your family tells a lot that  you like to hear? What is that story?•What does it mean to have courage?•Can you tell about a time when you had to be really brave?

Rationale:  We learn about each other through story. This activity will serve as an introduction to the three stories Whoever You Are by Mem Fox, Brothers in Hope by Mary Williams, and In the Small, Small Night by Jane Kurtz. Students will have a chance to learn more about each other and the class will learn about each student as their partner tells the stories they have heard.  

In Pictures and In Words: Inside the stories Reexamine the illustrations from each book to direct your students’ attention to decisions the artist made Discuss and chart:

Color choices and how they set mood and tonePerspective of the drawing/ point of viewLayoutStyleDetailsTechnique

Make the connection with your students that illustrating is the same as composing.

Rationale: By helping children examine illustrations with an artist’s viewpoint, you are encouraging them to infer  how writers use similar techniques in composition.  These discussions will act as a springboard for building future bridges  of understanding, whether children are physically drawing images then writing or writing imagery so their readers may create pictures in their mind’s eye.

Interdisciplinary Study: After Reading the stories

Social Studies:

•Display a map of Africa:  label  Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya , and Ghana .  •Research these countries•Set up an ePals.com account so classes can connect with students in these countries for projects•Comparison Chart : On a map, find Sudan and chart each country and continents on that same latitude around the globe.

Language Arts:

•Use Cause and Effect graphic organizers so students can chart the relationships of events in the stories. 

•Vocabulary:  Word Webs from vocabulary words provided from each story

•Wikipages : In groups, students take on roles as editor, copy writer, illustrator, and fact checker to create a wikipage for a country in Africa that describes the culture, natural resources, significant historical events. Collaboration with your ePal class could take place here as well.  This could be used as a place to report on your project other than just a country report (See References for how to set up a wiki).

•Write an allegory: a story that teaches a moral lesson using the major subjects of any of the stories (we are all the same, be brave when times are hard, etc) . GT Students may want to draw their own illustrations.  Another option would be to use VOKI.com where the children choose an animal avatar to tell their recorded story.  

References:

Classroom Guide for Brothers in Hope

ePals.com/ Africa for classroom connections to whole classes in Africa

How to set up a wiki

In Pictures and In Words by Katie Wood plus study guide

Mem Fox, the author

More information about the Lost Boys

Multicultural Children’s Literature

Voki.com

Whoever You Are Lesson Plans