Welcome to Learning Event #2 (#LE2) for #WalkMyWorld 2021. In this journey we’ll think about the story of you…told from past, present, and future.
#WalkMyWorld #LE2 –
Where I Begin
As we continue this walk in your world, please begin at the beginning. Home.
Even if you don’t know who your ancestors are, you have a culture. Even if you are a mix of many cultures, you have one.
Culture evolves and changes all the time. It came from your ancestors from many generations ago, and it comes from your family and community today.
Becoming aware of your different identities can help you understand what it might be like to belong to a cultural group.
The video above is Adam Gottlieb performing his piece Maxwell Street from the Louder Than a Bomb documentary. You can review the full text of the poem here.
We all have different viewpoints of the ideas, thoughts, and feelings about where we grew up.
Dear Mama is an homage to Tupac Shakur‘s mother, Afeni Shakur, and all mothers struggling to maintain a family in the face of addiction, poverty, and societal indifference.
WRITE
Think of a place you call home. It could be your neighborhood or city. It could be where you live now, where you used to live, a room, an apartment, a house you know well. Use the prompts below to help create a portrait of your home. You don’t need to fill in all of the lines or limit yourself to just these questions.
- What does your home smell like?
- What do people do for work?
- What are the public places where people gather?
- What are the important streets and intersections?
- What are the difficult social issues your home faces?
- What are the sounds you might hear at 10 pm on Saturday night?
- Who are important historical figures and/or events from your home?
- What slang do people use in your home?
- What do people fear in your home?
- What do they hope for?
Use your responses to questions 1–10 to create your portrait of home.
Create a written list of words/phrases about home. Do not think too hard. Write what first comes to you. Go at a fairly brisk pace.
As you write, remember the details in Adam and Tupac’s pieces. Think about the descriptive words, metaphors, and personal stories. Challenge yourself to use similar literary devices to describe the place you’re from.
CONNECT
After you finish your poem…share this out with others.
If we build a network of diverse and strong relationships, we can come together and solve problems that we have in common.
You should share this out on Twitter as Write.As using the hashtag #WalkMyWorld. You should also include the hashtag #LE2 to indicate your response to this second learning event.
If you’re interested, we do have a semi-private group in Flipgrid for sharing and discussing this year. Send me an email and I’ll bring you in.
Enjoy…and let’s connect with each other online.
Each one of us is like a hub of a wheel. Each one of us can build relationships and friendships around ourselves that provide us with the necessary strength to achieve our goals.
Graffiti flickr photo by stripe4 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
