When I Was Puerto Rican

When I Was Puerto Rican

by Esmeralda Santiago

Materials: "The American Invasion of Macun"

Overview:

In this lesson, we are going to write a short memoir based on the topic we are going to generate from the chapter of Santiago's memoir "When I Was Puerto Rican". To begin the process, we'll do the following-

Select a topic of theme as the focus of your memoir
Learn some techniques of writing a memoir and apply them to writing our own
Create a timeline (chronological or thematic)
Pick the two most significant events from the timeline and do some research to explore the historic or cultural movements during the time-frame of the events.
Develop the two events and incorporate the historic or cultural background into your memoir writing.

Activity 1:Generating Questions and Topics Relating to Literature

1. What is a memoir? What are you expecting to read and learn from a memoir?
Write your answer in a journal( journal #1)

2.Share your journals in class.

4. We'll select three parts of the chapter to read aloud in class and while reading, identify the writing techniques Santiago used in her memoir.

Section I: The 3rd paragraph that begins with "It was the daily English class..." on page 65(first page in your handout).- an exemplar of using descriptive language in memoir writing.
Section 2:The dialogue between Negi, the narrator, and her classmate Ignacio on pages 70 &71- an exemplar of using direct speech, dialogues in memoir writing.
Section 3 :The dialogue between Papi and Negi on Pages 72 to 74 ending with..."Only if you like it better than our Puerto Rican food."

5. Once reading is finished, let's write a journal ( journal #2) using the following prompts and try to ask as many questions as you can relating to the chapter:

What have I learned from this chapter? (i.e. about the characters, the village, the town. the school, social and historic background of the story described in the chapter you read.)
What more do I want to know relating to the story( i.e. Who did other Puerto Ricans feel about becoming part of the common wealth of the United States? What was Brooklyn like in 1960-1970?)
What themes or issues are implied or described in the story? For example:

What makes someone an American?

Are changes always bad or good? Why?

How do social changes affect people's lives?

How do children's behavior and remarks reflect a community's culture?

Are there any other questions sprung from the story to which I'd like to find answer?
In what way do I feel the story speaks me ?

6. Share journals in small groups. Each group generates a list of questions for further inquiry and post them in the Document section in our Internet classroom for the entire class to share. Go to nicenet.org, log in and join a new class using the key-
Class Name: Esmeralda Santiago
Your Class Key: O6Z764E39

HW.

A. Revisit our Santiago Internet classroom to read all groups' questions or topics and pick one topic that you are most interested in writing about in your memoir. You may use any topic from the list or a new one that just came to your mind. About selecting topics for self-inquiry or research:

There is a close connection between the topic you have chosen and the literature you have read.
You really want to explore the topic or question further (You need to be genuinely interested in the topic).
You'll be able to find information through interviews( personal stories ) and online research( historic & cultural background )on the topic.

B. Finish reading the rest of the chapter and write a journal (journal #3) responding to the question "How is the theme 'American Invasion' reflected in Santiago's memoir"?

Activity 2: Brainstorming Ideas or Stories to Start Writing a Memoir through Creating a Thematic or Chronological Timeline

1. Share our responses to the question of "How is the theme 'American Invasion' reflected in Santiago's memoir"? After sharing, we can draw a diagram that demonstrates the structure of Santiago's memoir. You will use the diagram to help you organize ideas in writing your own memoir.

2. Write the final topic you have decided on the top of your paper and respond in written words to the following ( your topic can be a question)-

How is the topic discussed in the literature you read? Describe it.
What is your personal reaction to the topic? Is there a personal story (or stories) behind the reactions? Did the event take place in a special setting or background? Who do you see in the event, your family members, schoolmates or teachers, friends, cops, etc? What was happening in your community, town or the world when the event occurred?
What would your parents or family members say about the topic?
What did some of the well-known scholars, historians, critics, TV. or newspaper commentators say about the topic?

3. Create a chronological timeline.

Put the "personal story" as Event 1 and put it in the center of a straight line. Write your birth year at the left end of the line and 2002 at the right end of the line. We'll create a chronological timeline.

1986-------------------------------------Event 1----------------------------2002

Is there an event prior to Event 1?

Is there an event after Event 1?

Are there any other events in between any events?

Are there any memories of images, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings? Use doodles to represent any images that come to your mind?

1986-------Prior Event---Event A------Event 1------After Event--Event B-----2002

4.Create a thematic timeline. Use the diagram to help you bring out your memories. Again an event can be triggered by a scent, an image, or certain feelings of touch, etc. Use your five sense as your resources.

Activity 3 : Take one or two events that can best illustrate the theme or topic, and do some research exploring the historic or cultural movements during the timeframe of the events you selected. Once you finish exploring one or two of the selected events and movements, now you can start writing a short memoir excerpt that relates the events on your timeline to the historic or popular culture information.

While researching, you need to -

summarize or paraphrase the information you found
put any directly quoted statement in quotation marks
copy down the URLs of the web pages where you found the information( Read How to do citations)
gather the information you need using real idex cards or electronic index cards. For example,

Topic: What was happening in my community, town or the world when the event occurred?

John Dole 's article in the New York Time, Sept. 18, 1984, states,"...................." (URL: www.nytimes.com/xxxxxx.html)

Here are the recommended search engines to use for your research-
www.infoseek.com ,
www.google.com ,
www.askjeeves.com,
www.yahoo.com.
www.altavista.com
www.excite.com
www.lycos.com
www.miningco.com(www.about.com)
www.webcrawler.com
www.galaxy.com
www.northenlight.com
www.looksmart.com
www.hotbot.com
www.thunderstone.com

We can also use the following muti-threaded or metasearch engines by asking specific questions-

Multi-Threaded
Highway 61
MetaCrawler
The Big Hub

Meta-Search
Ask Jeeves! - perform searches by asking questions
Dogpile
SavvySearch