In class: 1.Reading the preamble to chapter 3. The cutural connection is the Gullah Geechee people of the United States (See map) and how Trevor Noah's words in the preamble are reflective of this vibrant community today.
2. Visiuals where these Americans live today
3. Collect notebooks. New Page title: Blue Window Trim, 11/30
. Read Blue Window Trim by Patricia Sawyer
In a couple of sentences, what is the theme of this poem and what text within the poem supports this?
4.. Individually watching a contemporary video on the Gullah Geechee people. See link below (6:05)
5. Filling in the graphic organizer below. As usual, copy onto a google doc and share at dorothy.parker@rcsdk12.org (suggestion: copy the organizer and complete as you watch the video.)
The Penn School, one of the country's first schools for formerly enslaved individuals.
Penn Center is a significant African American historical and cultural institutions in existence today. They are located on St. Helena Island, one of the most beautiful and historically distinct of the South Carolina Sea Islands, and at the heart of Gullah culture.
Blue Window Trim -
"We adopted the religion of our colonizers, but most people held on to the old ancestral ways, too, just in case. In South Africa, faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies." Trevor Noah
Preamble for chapter 3:
1.We come from a country where people are more likely to visit sangomas—shamans, traditional healers, pejoratively known as witch doctors—than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine. I come from a country where people have been arrested and tried for witchcraft—in a court of law. I’m not talking about the 1700s. I’m talking about five years ago. I remember a man being on trial for striking another person with lightning.
2. That happens a lot in the homelands. There are no tall buildings, few tall trees, nothing between you and the sky, so people get hit by lightning all the time. And when someone gets killed by lightning, everyone knows it’s because somebody used Mother Nature to take out a hit. So if you had a beef with the guy who got killed, someone will accuse you of murder and the police will come knocking. “Mr. Noah, you’ve been accused of murder. You used witchcraft to kill David Kibuuka by causing him to be struck by lightning.”
3. “What is the evidence?”
“The evidence is that David Kibuuka got struck by lightning and it wasn’t even raining.”
And you go to trial. The court is presided over by a judge. There is a docket. There is a prosecutor. Your defense attorney has to prove lack of motive, go through the crime-scene forensics, present a staunch defense. And your attorney’s argument can’t be “Witchcraft isn’t real.” No, no, no. You’ll lose.
Gullah history and culture 6:05
What I have learned about the Gullah communities of the sea islands of the southern US |
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