#walkmyworld - Learning Event Three - Identity

Reflect on Your Identity 

Learning Event Response -

Read and annotate Identity by Julio Noboa Polanco. Read and annotate The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur. Think about how the authors describe their identities and wishes in the text.

Share a surprising side of yourself that tells something about your world. Be creative and use the poems to drive your response using images, video, text, and/or audio. You may want to combine them all. 

In a tweet to the #WalkMyWorld hashtag, share out a link to this work that you've created. You might chose to share this work on a blog post, or using a page on the digital front door many of you created previously. We urge you to play and be creative in your expression. Go to the Maker Menu if needed for ideas and tutorials on how to present your response. 

My Response - 

Identity

 by Julio Noboa Polanco

 Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

(People are beautiful creatures but bound to containment)

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.

(A weed may not be as appealing but has freedom like a soaring eagle)

To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
carrying my soul, my seed,
beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.

(A weed in a rock has had to struggle to make it.  But because of that fight it is open to new experiences and what the world has to offer)

I'd rather be unseen, and if
then shunned by everyone,
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
growing in clusters in the fertile valley,
where they're praised, handled, and plucked
by greedy, human hands.

(I don't care if anyone notices me or praises my surface beauty because I my future is not directed by others )

I'd rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.

(Independence is better than being controlled or cultivated)

The Rose That Grew From Concrete

  By Tupac Shakur

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it

learned to walk with out having feet.

(Like salmon that swim against the current, this rose defied odds to get where it wanted to)

Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

(Never give up on your dreams regardless of the struggle)

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

(Praise yourself; do it for you)

                                               

Both poems speak to the importance of being independent and not bound by how society sees you.  Working with students who have been labeled non-readers, this message really spoke to the struggles they face but also overcome just like the weed in the rock and the rose in the concrete.  My digital identity isn't as rebellious or daring, but more like the daffodil that chooses to grow in the middle of my yard rather than with the others under the tree.  It has the same yellow cup and green leaves, but it grows on its own.  This is like my digital identity because this identity doesn't look different from the real me, but allows me to stand out as an independent - a traditional reading tutoring who uses New Literacies to develop the independence of my students.  

For this learning event, I wanted to create a similar poem that touches on this theme - being different in big ways or small ways identifies you as independent. Enjoy! 

Independent

By Josie Calamari

Go against the grain. 

Fight the urge to be bound by the restrain.

Embrace the challenges that will arise.

For they will not define you,

but be the tools that dreams come to realize.