In/relation/Module 1/Learning Together/Diving Deeper/Option 3

Bi-Giwen: Coming Home

Adapted from “Bi-Giwen: Coming Home - Truth-Telling from the Sixties Scoop”

Using George Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From, students will explore their own identity and ponder how identity is formed. This self-reflection leads to a contemplation of what Sixties Scoop Survivors may have lost when they were removed from their birth families and communities and of their resiliency today as they work to reclaim their origins. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you are at today, or you won’t know where you’re going.

Preparation

In learning about land acknowledgements, it is important to think about yourself in relationship with land acknowledgements, where you come from, what you bring in terms of your personal and family background and history, and your relationships to people, protocols, and places.

1. Discuss the word “identity” or “positionality”; come up with words or ideas that contribute to how we form our identities. Encourage thinking around formative childhood experiences, parental values, and involvement in culture to get conversation flowing.

Activity

1. Read the poem Where I'm From aloud (page 15). Then line by line, have a new person read each line aloud.
2. Listen to George Ella Lyon’s voice reading her own poem.
3. Explain that George Ella Lyon is the Poet Laureate for the State of Kentucky for 2015-16. Her poem was chosen as it provides a strong example of identity and origin and can easily be replicated via a template.
4. Have students fill in the poem template inspired by Where I’m From (page 16).
5. Participants can choose to present their poems in small groups and explain their choice of words.
6. Ask participants to reflect upon and share how making their own poems impacts their understanding of their home families and communities.
   • What was your process for writing your own “Where I’m from” poem? What was surprising?
   • How did writing the poem help your own self-awareness and sense of identity?
   • How does your poem express what you bring as a learner to Musqueam lands?
   • How does your poem relate to your own (or family, or cultural) definitions of “wealth”?