Literacy Timeline/Heritage Poem – A.1.4

IMPORTANT: Specifications for Your Poem

Possible Book Title - Section 2 (Spring 2011)

Possible Book Title - Section 4 (Spring 2011)

The goal of this project is to celebrate the diversity of our literacy experience. Sharing our personal experiences with literacy will help us build our classroom community. Reflecting on our own and each other's literacy histories will help us understand the wide-range of experiences and world views our students will bring into our classrooms.

You will create a literacy timeline or an inside-outside portrait. Your timeline should span from birth to the age of the students you plan to teach. (As I have spent the majority of my career teaching in elementary schools, my timeline goes from birth to age eleven.) If you choose to do an inside-outside portrait, you will focus on your adolescent years. 

These are some questions that will help you create your literacy timeline or inside-outside portrait:

• What memories do you have about stories, books, and/or reading as a child and/or as an adolescent? (These memories can be from home, school, libraries, scouting, religious institutions, or other literacy places.)
• Who are the people who made a difference in your early literacy (or adolescent literacy) experiences?
• Besides books, what other media played a part in your early literacy (or adolescent literacy) such as oral storytelling, TV, movies, magazines...?
• Are there specific story/book/movie titles or genres (such as poetry, science fiction, fantasy) that stand out in your recollections?
• For Inside-Outside Portrait: What was going on in the world at the time that influenced your literacy? 

Use the Rubric 1.4 Heritage Poem to self-assess your work. Your literacy timeline/portrait and draft of your one-page single-sided Heritage Poem are due in class for partner editing. (See the Assignment Tool Tracking Sheet.)

Bring your timeline/portrait, books or other media samples, and poem to share in small groups.

We will share our poems in small groups and partner edit them in class in Module 1.3. Your final poem is due in class in Module 1.4. We will publish these in a class book. I'll ask for one or two volunteers to create a cover for our book. (This is one of our class jobs.)

Illustrate your contribution with a photograph(s) and/or drawings but remember copies will be made in black and white. If you choose to use a Web 2.0 tool to present your poem, you will still need a hard copy for the class book. You can use a screen shot of your Web 2.0 presentation as an illustration. (Include the URL on your final poem.)

Examples: 

• Literacy Time Line and "Where I'm From" Poem: http://storytrail.com/SLIS/ls3013/A_1_3  
• Rachel's  VoiceThread "Where I'm From" Poem: http://voicethread.com/#q.b1291603
• Dr. M.'s VoiceThread presentation of "Where I'm From" Poem: http://voicethread.com/#u117067.b161985.i864217 
• Dr. M.'s Inside-Outside Portrait: http://storytrail.com/SLIS/ls3013/A_1_3a.html

Steps4Success:

1. View the samples offered by the professor on the course wiki at: http://ls3013.pbworks.com/A_1_4
2. Review the Rubric 1.4  – Heritage Poem.
3. During your public library field trip, identify a collection of four or five books or other media that belong on your timeline or in your portrait.
4. Create the timeline or portrait on paper or using a Web 2.0 tool. For possible Web 2.0 tools for mind-mapping, storyboarding, and productivity tools, visit: http://ls5443.wikispaces.com/Web_2.0
5. Use your timeline or portrait as a prompt to compose a free-verse literacy heritage poem.
6. Bring your timeline/portrait and a draft of your poem to class on September 15^th.
7. Share in a small group and partner edit.
8. Submit your final heritage poem in BB before the Module 1.4 class. 
9. You will receive feedback on your poem. You will edit it, and then your poem will be added to a class book. (You may volunteer to create a cover.)
10. If you used a Web 2.0 tool to create your timeline, portrait, or present your poem, include the URL on your one-page single-sided document.

Assessing and Presenting Your Work:

v Use the Rubric 1.4 to self-assess your work.

v Bring your timeline/inside-outside portrait and draft of your poem to class in Module 1.3.

v Share with a small group, edit with a partner, and create a final heritage poem.

IMPORTANT:

v Submit your Rubric 1.4 and an electronic copy of our poem in the BB Assignment Tool in Module 1.4 before class.

File Name:
Last Name_Rubric_1.4

Last Name_Poem

Examples:
Moreillon_Rubric_1.4

Moreillon_Poem

Rubric 1.4 - Heritage Poem (.doc)

A word about illustrating your poem:

In this course, you will practice the ethical use of information and ideas. This means that when you illustrate your work, you will use original or copyright-free images IF you are distributing that work on the Internet. To find copyright-free images, you can use the resources at: http://ls5443.wikispaces.com/Web_2.0

Publishers allow book reviewers to use book jackets in their work.

For work that remains in paper format in the classroom, you may use images under “Fair Use,” but you must cite sources if images are not your own.

A.1.4 Assignment Sheet (.pdf file)

This literacy engagement began with a "Where I'm From" poem by Kentucky author and poet George Ella Lyon.

For a commentary about why this project is important to our learning in this course, read the About School Pal blog posting called "Define Yourself to Know the World."