Writing & Thinking Script: Personal Influences, Kesi Augustines Obamas Dream and Sherman Alexies My Papas Waltz

(1 hour, 50 minutes) 1. Start by drawing a picture of you and your influences however you wish to depict that visually. Include what has shaped you to be the person, sister/brother, daughter/son, student, friend, etc. you are. (10 minutes) - Influences can be drawn surrounding you, or within you, or both. - There may be opposing forces - Influences can take the form of a person, place, religion, political viewpoint, a quote that has stuck with youwhatever you remember, hold onto, value, etc. - They can be negative influences, that have shaped you by counterexample (i.e., what NOT to do) - You can choose to convey these influences with symbols, minimal text, or both. 2. Focused Free Write: Your response, seeing all of these images/ideas/people on one page. What do you notice? What surprises you? (5 minutes) 3. Choose one of the influences in your picture, and if you havent already, assign a word (or phrase) to it. 4. Text Explosion: After choosing one influence, explore it more deeply when/how it became a part of your life, a specific memory it relates to, why it is important to you and who you are. If its a person, what about him/her is influential? (5 minutes) 5. Thought Chain: Share text explosion in thought chain form (15 minutes) - Here, ask them to listen carefully and look for a kernel in another students piece that resonates with them, and/or somehow connects to something in their writing. 6. Have students each take a turn reading paragraphs 1, 3, 7, and 8 from Kesi Augustines article Obamas Dream aloud. (5 minutes) 7. Sprint Writing: Spending a few minutes on each of the following questions (15 minutes) - What springs to mind? What are your thoughts after reading this? - How if at all - does Augustines point of view fall in line with what you already believe or experience, or influence your hopes and goals? - How if at all - does Augustines POV go against your experience, POV, expectations, etc.

8. Choose one sprint, and share them, in thought chain form (15 minutes) - There can be more room for debate here 9. Read My Papas Waltz quietly (5 minutes) 10. Spending a few minutes on each of the following questions (10 minutes) - How does this poem make you feel? - How much do this poem and/or Alexies connection to it resonate with your own life experiences/past influences? - How much does this poem, etc. go against your experience, POV, expectations, etc? 11. Share one of the three sprints in read-around form. (10 minutes) 12. Process Writing: How might these two pieces be in conversation with each other? Was one of the two easier/harder to write about, and if so, why? (5 minutes) 13. Discussion: Returning to the picture/map you drew of your influences, and in light of these pieces of writing and the exercises, have you discovered anything new about what appears in the picture for you? (10 minutes)