Behind the Mask: Tupac's Rose, Introducing Rhetoric, and Surprising Revelations

I am constantly blown away by my students' vulnerability, perseverance, and courage. But I can only appreciate those qualities when I create the conditions for them to feel safe enough to share their stories with me. Often, that's tough to do given the pressure to meet our learning goals and objectives.

So it's on me to figure out how I can do "double-duty" in the class, i.e., find activities that meet a legitimate learning objective and that allows students to share something that helps me appreciate them for the three dimensional human beings they are.

Luckily, since our class is about strengthening rhetorical skills, I get to choose texts that serve the needs of textual analysis and that lend themselves for introspection and personal reflection. To demonstrate and practice the sort of rhetorical analysis we will do all semester, we analyzed s poem by Tupac Shakur, "The Rose that Grew From Concrete" from an anthology of the same name.

SWCBLogger Challenge #4: First Day of Class

It makes sense that the first blog post for this semester's SWCBlogger's asks us to reflect on opening moves or ice-breakers we used in class. I was inspired by the keynote speaker of the Opening Day Professional Development Program, Jeff Duncan-Andrade (I wrote about the opening day in another post here.) He is a professor at SFSU and teaches high school in East Oakland.  The above clip features an abbreviated version of the talk he gave to staff and faculty. 

Duncan-Andrade reminded us of the significance of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. Students - everyone! - needs a modicum of love/belonging and self-esteem before they can operate at a level of self-actualization where optimal learning takes place. Duncan-Andrade lit a fire under me to find ways to teach skills and concepts that help students build their sense of efficacy. I've got to layer lessons that help students gain the confidence to see themselves as thinkers and writers.