Write Your Truth

The instructor said,

Go home and write,

a page tonight,

And let that page come out of you —

Then, it will be true.

~Langston Hughes, excerpt from "Theme for English B" ~

It's March. I'm in the throws of teaching essay skills. I emphasize skills because my students have not yet written a full essay. We have, though, written many evidence based paragraphs, written hooks, written conclusions, examined how transitions can be words, phrases, or sentences, and restated claims using various sentence structures and punctuation marks. We have practiced using synonyms and exploring how changing the arrangement of phrases and clauses within a sentence emphasize different ideas.

Last week we used Langston Hughes poem "Theme of English B" as an entry way into writing claim statements. We first learned about the Harlem Renaissance and how Langston Hughes was at the forefront of telling his truth as an African American during the time period. We practiced writing claim statements based on a prompt I created and then students wrote their own "Our Truth Poems." This was a station activity (Click HERE), one I had not done before, so I was not sure if students would take to the poem writing part.

They did. Perhaps because I modeled my own poem and because there was no "requirement" but to write their truth, a stark comparison to the type of writing we had been doing with essay. Students asked if they could share their poems anonymously, so they created a website and a Google Doc.

We never got past the second poem on the "Our Truth Poems" Google Doc that was created because one of the students wrote about being stereotyped and that took the class conversation into a powerful direction. We talked about HOW to have critical conversations with people who disagree or do not understand an aspect of your identity: "Tell me why you think that...what experience/evidence do you have." It was a breakthrough discussion about stereotypes and it lasted most of the class period.

I wanted to capitalize on that conversation, so I tried to fit the topic of stereotypes into essay writing.

I created this lesson, which was inspired by the work I had done with Caroline Lehman, one of my previous PLC members: Stereotypes and Compound Sentences.

First, we brainstormed stereotypes about teens.

Then we brainstormed friends the students knew who "shattered" one of the teen stereotypes we had listed. For example, a common stereotype is that teens today can't communicate and are obsessed with social media. Everyone in the class could name a peer who defied that stereotype.

Then we watched this video.

Then we wrote our own compound sentence (s) that shattered a stereotype about us and we displayed our sentences around the room.

Examples: I am teen, but I spend most of my free time in the woods, not on social media. I am a boy, but I do my own laundry. I am a girl, but I can hook my own worm. I am a pastor's daughter, but I am not perfect.

I closed class with these two takeaways: It feels good to tell the world that we are not defined by its standards, and our conversation--and the tangent we took this week-- was sparked by a student's poem, which was inspired by Langston Hughes. Writing our truth has the power to ignite change.

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