Newsletter #17: Who Am I?

I love the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. I’m obsessed with new crayons neatly arranged inside their boxes waiting to be used. Every August I get excited to return to school: new opportunities, new students, and new art supplies!

One of the first projects I do with my students is a school-wide project called “You Matter.” We talk about our uniqueness and individuality as part of a whole school community and how we matter to each other.

As part of the project I have every student draw a self portrait onto a 3x3 inch piece of paper. The drawing has to be a portrait and it has to be done in black and white. We “frame” them onto colorful backgrounds, which each student individually designs, and finally mount them onto a wall to create a mural of ourselves. 700 tiny portraits. It’s a beautiful sight.

When we talk to our students about individuals in a community, it’s great to use a thinking routine which helps students connect themselves to each other. One such routine is called “Who am I? Explore, Connect, Identify, Belong” by Project Zero. Project Zero, a Harvard Graduate School of Education initiative, creates simple, research-based strategies which enable students to engage, reflect, and explore the complexity of identity.

This routine gets students to “think about who you are and then about someone else. Consider how you have become who you are, where you belong and what that can mean in our changing world”. (Project Zero) It gives students the opportunity to reserve judgment and broaden their understanding of other people.

Explore: Ask students to answer, “who am I”? They may do this alone or with a group or partner. Give each student the same amount of time to consider themselves.

Connect: Ask students to find how they might be connected. For example, I am a sister, I am a student, and I play on a basketball team. Who else am I connected to? What other groups am I connected to?

Identify: If I wanted others to know who I am, what would identify me? Do we have more than one identity? Consider role playing as if you were a new student introducing yourself for the first time.

Belong: Where do I think I belong? Do I have a sense of belonging to more than one group or place? Have students list the places they belong.

This routine can be incorporated as one lesson, or in more than one lesson. “The process can be planned and shaped in response to the discussions it elicits”. (PZ) Discuss how similarities, not differences help us to belong and create communities. When we are a part of something, it is easier to feel like we matter.