News From the Nest-Spotlight on Learning: Personal Connections: Poetry and First Peoples
Spotlight On Learning
Presented by: Ms. Taylor
Subject: English First Peoples 10
Driving Question: How can we use poetry to explore and develop understanding of First Peoples themes and to foster empathy through personal connections?
TEACHER DESCRIPTION and/or REFLECTION:
Through poetry, students explored their choice of one of the following Indigenous themes from the Ministry curriculum: connection to the land, the nature and place of spirituality as an aspect of wisdom, the relationships between individual and community, the importance of oral tradition (storytelling), the experience of colonization and decolonization, loss of identity and affirmation of identity, tradition, healing, role of family, importance of Elders, or another topic of their choice.
Students developed understanding of varied perspectives on their chosen theme by collecting, analyzing, and reflecting on several poems by Indigenous authors. They then responded personally and empathetically by writing original poetry on the same theme and reflecting on what they learned through the creative process. Highlights of this project for me as the teacher were reading the students’ “Where I’m From” poems, which were delightfully unique, and their reflections, where they demonstrated how their own perspectives of Indigenous issues were expanded through their research and where they often expressed their sense of gratitude for their own families, cultures, and experiences.
STUDENT REFLECTIONS:
From our final poetry inquiry project my theme was: the experience of colonization and decolonization. I first found some poems randomly not really knowing what I was doing but when I started annotating the first poem I started to really connect and understand the poems meaning. I figured that I should find new poems for the other two poems now that I understood it better so they would all go together. I really enjoyed this project because I have never found poetry interesting but since this was indigenous related, that made it easier to put more thought and effort into it as it is an interesting subject. Writing my own poems was also more fun than it has been in the past mostly because after annotating the first three poems it made me understand the poem structure better so I could write more. I think I did quite excellent job on this final project and am proud of the poems I have written, and I hope my teacher sees the effort I put into this project.