My heritage?

This prompt makes me think of a very similar prompt that I was given when I was a lot younger: What is your heritage? Where do you come from? Excited, I went home and asked my parents about my family heritage. Sadly, there was no definite answer. "I'm not really sure," she said, "I think that our we are mainly English, Irish, German, maybe a little Scottish."

OK..... not a very definite answer. So, sadly, I still do not know exactly where in the world that I am from. I do know where I am from pertaining to who I AM as a person, where I grew up, and what experiences I have had in my own life, so I suppose that that is the most important thing - I know who I am and where I am from - even if I am unsure of my ancestry.

In my English 4790 class, we did a "Where I'm from Poem" in the style of George Ella Lyon. I really loved this assignment, and think that it would fit in well with this type of unit. Writing creatively though poetry, students are able to think about their youth and where they are directly from. (Dirt roads, lake shores, cornbread, clothes pins, you name it - it's possible!)

This type of assignment connects to all students individually and allows them to connect to each other through sharing. Decorating these pieces and posting them on the classroom wall or something similar is a way of celebrating everyone's different heritage!

Another idea that I love is to write chapters about your own life in the style of Sandra Cisnero's House on Mango Street. These chapters would be a chance for the students to teach each other about their own lives and cultures. Each chapter could have a different subject, which the students would choose the title to. Each student could deal with very different subjects and themes through this project!