ENGAGE – WARM UP (7 minutes)

 

Word Cloud (Mentimeter)

Write down the word family and invite students to brainstorm three words/phrases that come to their mind first when they think of the word CHILDHOOD. How does this word make them feel? 

 

Students are invited to use their cell phones and type those three words on Mentimeter.com thus creating a word cloud that is visible to everyone on the projector (Word Clouds (also known as wordle, word collage or tag cloud) are visual representations of words that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently. For Mentimeter Word Clouds, the words that are added most frequently by audience members using their smartphones. This type of visualization can help presenters to quickly collect data from their audience, highlight the most common answers and present the data in a way that everyone can understand.) This can also be done by brainstorming together out loud and writing those words on the board. 

 

Reflection: 

• What are the most common words that we see on the word cloud we have just created? 

• What about parts of speech? Are there mostly nouns, adjectives? 

• Do we mostly see places, feelings or something else? Why might that be? 

• What about parts of speech? Are there mostly nouns, adjectives? 

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Transition: As we just discovered, childhood is not just one thing. It’s filled with moments of learning, joy, and sometimes loss. In our next strategy we will take time to do a deeper reflection on one, specific memory from our childhood.

 

EXPLORE (20 minutes)

 

Guided Imagery Tour of the Space (15 minutes)

Students are invited to expand on what they were brainstorming about. Everyone pick one childhood memory that you would like to spend some more time thinking about. When you have an idea give me a thumbs up.  Once students are ready take them through a brief guided imagery. Please sit inThey are divided in pairs and find your   and asked to find their own space in the room. 

 

Pairs are invited to sit, Close your eyes and think of one of your most memorable childhood memories. Imagine or recall this place in great detail, down to the color of the curtains or the texture of the grass. Pay attention to the smells and the sounds, and try to recall all the details. Who is in this memory? What are you doing? How did the moment make you feel? Invite students to open their eyes. If needed, students can take a moment to write down key words for themselves about their memory place.

 

Next, ask each pair to decide on one person to be the guide as they prepare to give a Tour of their Childhood Memory.

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Tour of a Space (15 min).

Tour of a Space asks students to offer a verbal and kinesthetic “tour” of a specific location to another student or group. This activity requires the guide to use sensory details and physical action to help other students imagine the place the guide is describing. This strategy helps all students develop further background knowledge and explore how our environment shapes our understanding of a time, place, or event.)

If needed, students could each write down keywords for themselves about the space they are describing.

 

Directions: 

Each guide takes his or her partner for a five-minute tour of the place from their childhood memory. Encourage the guide to actively describe the details of the space around them, while they physically explore each part of the space. The person on the tour can ask questions, and the guide may respond briefly though the focus must remain on the tour itself. After five minutes, have the partners switch roles and so the former partner becomes the new tour guide. 

Afterwards, gather the group together and ask several partners to briefly describe their colleague’s space to the rest of the group. 

 

Reflection: (5 minutes)

• What do you most remember from your partner’s tour? What did you see/smell/touch/taste/hear? For those of you leading the tour, how did you help your partner see and understand the space?

• Now that we’ve heard about all the spaces…what was similar and/or different about the places we toured? Are there any similarities in our childhood memories?

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TRANSITION AND DISCUSSION: (18 minutes)

 

Transition (3 minutes): 

How might these spaces and places invite us to think more deeply about Esperanza’s childhood memories and her family? Are there any similarities?

Can you think of an example where Esperanza is describing one of her childhood memories? What does she pay attention to mostly? 

 

Alternate Transition: (3 minutes):

In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, the author offers the reader a series of powerful childhood memories in the form of different vignettes. Let’s take a minute to do a close read of two of them. 

 

 

Excerpts on THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET (12 minutes)

Students are divided into groups and given handouts with two excerpts of Esperanza’s childhood memories

pages 6/7 – Hairs

pages 47/8 – Dancing shoes/Chanclas

 

After reading the excerpts, students are invited to think of the way Esperanza is describing her childhood memories and discuss them in their group:  

 

• What does she pay attention to mostly? Is it the sounds, the smells? 

• How does she describe the space? Does she directly tell us how she feels?

 

Reflection: (3 minutes)

Students are invited to compare Esperanza’s descriptions to the exploration they did on their own and with a partner of powerful childhood memory.

 

• What was similar and what was different between our memories and Esperanza?

• Why might that be?

• How does culture, time, and place share our memory and experiences? 

 

Excerpts from The House on Mango Street

 

EXCERPT 1

 

‘But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring.’

pages 6-7

 

EXCERPT 2

‘Then Uncle Nacho is pulling and pulling my arm and it doesn't matter how new the dress Mama bought is because my feet are ugly until my uncle who is a liar says, You are the prettiest girl here, will you dance, but I believe him, and yes, we are dancing, my Uncle Nacho and me, only I don't want to at first. My feet swell big and heavy like plungers, but I drag them across the linoleum floor straight center where Uncle wants to show off the new dance we learned. And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mother watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by first communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school.

 And all I hear is the clapping when the music stops. My uncle and me bow and he walks me back in my thick shoes to my mother who is proud to be my mother. All night the boy who is a man watches me dance. He watched me dance.’

pages 47-48