Mentor Text: The Ancestors by Jasmin Kaur
Techniques:
- Facing the challenges the “Where I’m From” poem lesson presents for some students
Background –
We’re all into a new school year.
Sometimes, in that chaos, we fall back on some tried and true lessons and texts. As we gather with new students, I know that many of us like to start with some variation on the “Where I’m From” lesson.
A couple of years ago, I realized that many of us may be relying on texts and strategies that may not work for our students. I was using Taylor Mali’s MadLib Slam poem activity, when I realized that there were students for whom the activity wasn’t just going to be unfolding a poem, but also opening up some potentially hard feelings, as they had to write and reflect on their mother and father. That’s not an easy task for everyone.
So, I kind of shelved this kind of poem for a couple of years, exploring that memoir writing through other avenues.
But as I worked my way through the poetry section in the town where I spend summers, I found a wonderful alternative.
How we might use this text:
Facing the challenges the “Where I’m From” poem lesson presents for some students– Right off the hop, Kaur’s poem allows writers who may not be able to access the traditional family structure, or have a well-developed relationship to their backgrounds for whatever reason a way to deal with that. “I know very little about the women who carved lines into my palms…” is a wonderful opening declaration, as it will free some of our writers from the need to pretend that they have the traditional sources of identity to draw upon.
And I kind of love it as a piece that meets kids where they are. Adolescence is so largely a time of discovering one’s identity as it is, but we know that there are numerous factors in that, and many things that influence it, positively and negatively. Starting by identifying what they don’t know speaks to that confusion as they figure out who they are.
And they follow this with “…but I do know…” and can actually explore the things that they feel form their identity at this time. Maybe it is family. I think of the young people I’ve seen embrace their Indigeneity, and lean into that learning. I think of LGBTQ+ youth bravely embracing their truth. As these young people learn who they are, much of their identity is made up of what they don’t know and what they do.
I totally get the reliance on mentor texts that encourage a predictable response at the beginning of the year. I do it too. Starting the school year is overwhelming for us all, and we want some things that encourage a successful piece. However, it’s a good time for us to revisit these things too, to make sure that we’re setting the tone for our year to come, working to foster success in our students yes, but, in asking them to tell us who they are, providing them a mentor text that might just allow them to express that fully.
What other mentor texts do you have that shakes up this classic lesson? What other lessons do you have planned for the coming school year that might need some reflection and revisiting?
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