Displacement and Persona Poetry
In our text's this week, we looked into three outstanding readings that focused on the value of diversity in cultures and perspectives within the world. We were introduced to Dreamers, by Yuyi Morales and Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan. I also had the opportunity to dig into another beautiful text, The Arabic Quilt: An Immigrant Story by Aya Khalil Illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan and create a persona poem in the perspective of Kanzi, the main character. With this, I was able to demonstrate an empathic response by writing from the perspective of an immigrant or refugee.
Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives, and Dreams Brought to Life
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Written and Illustrated by:
Ahley Bryan
Dreamers
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Written and Illustrated by:
Yuyi Morales
What are these texts about?
Dreamers is a beautiful #OWNVOICE text written by Yuyi Morales. She shares what her and her son had to overcome by making the journey from Mexico, to America. She discusses how there was a lot she was unfamiliar with and how she missed her familiarity in things back home, but found peace in a local library. She discusses how books became their lives and their language.
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I love this text because it is a wonderful short, sympathetic ownvoice text that students will love. Something that stuck with me while reading this text was how they found love in an unfamiliar place. When they came across the library, they finally felt at home again and comfortable. This shows readers that even in unfamiliar times and places, you can always look towards what makes you smile and feel safe.
Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives, and Dream Brought to Life is a Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book, and also a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book. This remarkable text is written and illustrated by Ashley Bryan. Bryan does an incredible job in creating the dreams from the perspective of eleven slaves from the Fairchild's estate come to life and make them feel human again rather than property. This is a very powerful text because it shows the hopes and dreams of individuals during hard times.
About the Author's
The Arabic Quilt: An Immigrant Story
by Aya Khalil Illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan
The Arabic Quilt might be my new favorite text! I fell in love with this book as soon as I started reading! This story is an amazing read about a family that has recently moved to America from Egypt. The young girl in the story, Kanzi, is bilingual and nervous about starting her new school. She soon becomes a great role model and helps her peers learn more about not only her culture, but others as well. This is a great picture book portraying an immigrant's story that I can't wait to introduce to my classroom.
Check out more information about the author and illustrator
Check out my persona poem I created from the perspective of Kanzi! In this persona poem, I attempted to use what I learned about Kanzi in the text, The Arabic Quilt, to show empathy and get into her mind to show how she might have felt, thought, and acted while navigating through her new home.
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I invite you to create your own persona poem!
I am an American-Egypt immigrant
I live with Mama, Baba, and Zacharia in America
I wonder how my first day of school is going to go
I hear the school bell ringing as I turn down the arabic radio channel mama was singing too
I see classmates that are different than me
I want to be understood
I am as uneasy as a kitten towards a puppy
I am an American-Egypt immigrant, lonely and misunderstood
I question why I am different
I feel nervous that I won’t be accepted
I taste my kofta sandwich my baba packed for me
I worry why my language sounds ‘funny’
I excel at writing poetry
I understand that I am special because I am bilingual
I am an American-Egypt immigrant, learning and evolving
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I say mama is beautiful as she speaks to my class
I believe my classmates and I are friends now
I dream about the quilt we are making and how proud Teita would be
I try to embrace my culture as much as I can
I hope we learn more about other culture’s
I was once lonely and misunderstood
But now I am strong and confident
I am an American-Egypt immigrant
After reading the texts from this week, I decided to create my own artistic representation of what makes me happy. I used Dreamers as an inspiration by looking to what makes me happy, makes up my language, my home, and my life.
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As Kanzi discusses multiple times in the text, The Arabic Quilt, her quilt made by Teita in Egypt is very special to her. For my collage, I wanted to show things that are special to me and make up who I am.
References!
Bryan, A (2016). ​Freedom Over Me. Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
​​Khalil, A. (2020). The Arabic Quilt. Tilbury House, U.S.
Morales, Y (2018). Dreamers. Published by Penguin Random House.