Hi Fearless friends! It's time for another update from the Word Explorers: You've probably heard the old saying Don't judge a book by its cover, but have you ever thought of yourself as a book filled with stories and meaning that people can't see just by looking at you? This week (week 3 of Word Explorers), we explored how people are always more than what we can know about them from their names or appearances. After listening to "I Am Limitless," a spoken-word poem by Lina Abojaradeh, our fearless students shared their own experiences of how they feel on the inside versus how they may be seen by others on the outside. Try this exercise: Fold a sheet of paper in half. On one side, write "INSIDE" and make a list of words that reflect who you feel you are on the inside. On the other side write "OUTSIDE" and make a list of words that capture how others might see you from the outside. This exercise was the first step the Word Explorers took in reflecting about themselves as a book. Next, we took a page from Jason Reynolds and designed a book jacket for the book of our lives. We put our creativity to use with color, art, and words from the Inside/Outside exercise to create a blurb for the back of our book.
Students were also invited to consider what the book casing of their hard cover book might look like underneath the book jacket — adding one more layer to the idea that appearances can't possibly tell us everything about who a person is on the inside. And that's one great reason to be kind to everyone!
If you try any of the activites above at home, leave a comment and let us know what you discovered about yourself along the way!
Until next time,
Rachael (Fearless Ideas Writing Volunteer)
