The I Am Me And I Am Part of Us Project was carried out from September 2022 through March 2023 in collaboration with Natalia Anciso and her second grade class at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in San Francisco. With this project, elements of TWAICB curriculum complement Ms. Anciso’s Social Emotional Learning and Social Studies teaching objectives to help students learn about respecting others and valuing their own personal stories. The students wrote poems to reflect their own valuable identity, as well as a collective class poem to reflect their ideas of what it means to be part of a greater community. At their culminating presentation on March 24th, the students received the book of their individual poems, with the collective poem on the last page.
The students also received a poster of the beautiful mural they helped create under Ms. Anciso’s direction. The poster images help depict the essence of the Project. The butterflies are symbols of the students’ ancestors, and the flags shown in the central butterfly are the origin countries connected to the students and their families, offering a reflection of the beauty of their personal identities. The buildings are those of the Mission neighborhood surrounding the students’ school and homes, helping to convey how the students are part of their greater community.
On December 9th Natalia Anciso’s 2nd graders got on stage to read out their first set of poems to an audience of other second graders and family members, followed by enjoying some treats and celebrating their accomplishments. This occasion marked a milestone in our collaborative project called I Am Me And I Am Part of Us, that Natalia and I, colleagues since 2011, developed. With this project, elements of TWAICB curriculum complement Ms. Anciso’s Social Emotional Learning and Social Studies teaching objectives to help students learn about respecting others and valuing their own personal stories. The students are writing poems about who they are as people, and by the end of March 2023 will have considered what it means to be part of a greater community, using creative writing and visual arts to help express their ideas, all of which will be put into a book that the students will receive at their full culminating presentation.
TWAICB Newsletter Featuring I Am Me and I Am Part of Us
