MiddleWeb | Juli Kendall's 2004-05 Journal

Juli Kendall's
2004-05
READING/WRITING
WORKSHOP JOURNAL

Entry #17

Our Inquiry Study about Heritage

Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. (From an Internet website)

What does heritage mean? That's the question we ask as our students start an inquiry study about heritage. There are lots of puzzled looks as the kids put their heads together and share their thinking with others at their table. Comments range from, "It's where we come from" to "It's about your ancestors."

To start everyone thinking about their own heritage, I ask each student to write their heritage on a sticky note so we can make a bar graph with the information we get from the kids. After I hand out the sticky notes, there are lots of additional requests. "I need three more," calls out Ryan. This should be very interesting.

While I didn't think I had preconceptions about what the kids would say about their heritage, it turns out I did. The graph is a big surprise to me! The kids' responses fall into eight categories. They are:

— Mexican (25)
— Southeast Asian (5)
— Japanese (3)
— African American (4)
— Central American (7)
— English (9)
— Long Beach/Californian/American (16)
— Native American (1)

All these responses came from just 30 kids. Wow! We'll do this again at the end of our unit of study on heritage and see how the two graphs compare and contrast.

Next, I explain to the kids that they are going to be doing primary research — meaning they will be interviewing someone from their family about heritage. We talk about what an interview is. To help the kids visualize, I use two interviews done by our Journalism Club for the school newspaper as models. The first is an interview with our principal, Ed Garcia. (See Journal #13, "Portrait of a Principal Leader.") The second is an interview with the women who work in the cafeteria.

An Interview with the Lunch Ladies
By Abigail and Sinai

We interviewed the lunch ladies about their jobs. Their names are: Francisca Citua, Mayra Gil, Tho Mao, and Cyd Arenda.

Question #1 - Do you have fun working in the cafeteria?
Answer - It's very fun working in the cafeteria.

Question #2 - How do you feel when kids drop their food and ask for more?
Answer - It's all right.

Question #3 - How do you feel when kids don't want to get your food?
Answer - It's OK!

Question #4 - How do you feel when kids insult your food?
Answer - We hope that kids use good manners and are polite but we don't let it bother us.

Question #5 - Do you like it when kids treat you nice?
Answer - WE LOVE IT SO MUCH!

Question #6 - How long does it take to cook the food?
Answer - It depends what we're serving and how long it takes to cook, maybe an hour or two.

After we read and discuss the two interviews as a group, I ask each of the kids to make a list of questions they can use to interview someone in their family about heritage. They'll use this information to give an oral report to the class. Working together at their tables, they develop some interesting interview questions. After a few minutes, kids share out their questions and I write them on the board for everyone to see. From this list, they pick some to use to write a script for interviewing a family member.

Where were you born?
What kind of person are you?

Do you like your name?
What does your name mean?
Where did your name come from?
Why is your name important?
Why did you name me Anthony?
Would you ever want to change your name?
Is there something great about your name?
Why does each name come from each part of the world?
Where did you find out what your name means?

What part of your heritage are you proud of? Why?
Do we like our heritage? Why?
Are we supposed to like our heritage?

Where did your heritage start?
Is Mexico the only place we came from?
What country did my ancestors grow?
How many heritages do you have?
Did you ever have a step-dad?
Did you want to change your name to your stepparent's name?

Do you like the food you eat? Why?
How many languages do you know?

They'll have a week to do the interview and then we'll give oral presentations. I can hardly wait to hear the results of their interviews. I'm learning so much about these kids and myself through this inquiry process and I'm also gaining a better understanding of the meaning of heritage.

It is our legacy from the past. It is what we live with today. It is what we pass on to future generations.

A few resources for heritage:

Do People Grow on Family Trees? Genealogy for Kids & Other Beginners: The Official Ellis Island Handbook by Ira Wolfman
Going Back Home, An Artist Returns to the South by Michelle Wood and Toyomi Igus
Immigrant Kids by Russell Freedman
Journey to Ellis Island: How My Father Came to America by Carol Bierman
The Great Ancestor Hunt, The Fun of Finding Out Who You Are by Lila Perl
This Land is My Land by George Littlechild

Books for Kids

Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
Appalachia, The Voices of Singing Birds by Cynthia Rylant
Childtimes: A Three Generation Memoir by Eloise Greenfield and Lessis Jones Little
How Juan Got Home by Peggy Mann
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
In Two Worlds: A Yup'ik Eskimo Family by Aylette Jenness and Alice Rivers
Love As Strong As Ginger by Lenore Look
M. C. Higgins, The Great by Virginia Hamilton
My Daniel by Pam Conrad
Pueblo Storyteller by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
Racing the Sun by Paul Pitts
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam by Huynh Quang Nhuong
The Night Journey by Kathryn Lasky
Under the Palms, A Childhood in Cuba by Alma Flor Ada

Easy to use Internet Resources:

If you search for "heritage" on the Education World website you'll find a wide variety of lessons and other resources. For example:

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson340.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech096.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_sites/sites052.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/02/lp252-01.shtml

Scholastic also has links to resources for heritage.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/asian-american/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/hispanic/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/native_americans/index.asp

Read Juli's previous journal