​ 
 by Derek Talbot:
 
Oneiric Journey 
When I turned five, the Devil gave me three presents: a river of blood, fifteen bullet shells, and a dead father...
A raven flew over my head that endless day. The earth opened its mouth and I sank in its depths.
The vertigo resurfaced six years later when the raven turned into two black vans. The whispers of the night shadows asked us to leave as soon as possible. And thus, it was. 

My mother and I crossed the leafy labyrinths of Guatemala, covered in cold sweat. We crossed rivers and miseries, sewers and daggers.
When we reached the city, the sidewalk became our bed, our pillow; night ice, our blanket; hunger, our only food. The compass pointed northward, but my heart pounded southward. 
“How much is left?” “Very little, son, very little...” 
Oaxaca welcomed us with the smoke of cigars and the dust of the ground.
The pencil drew. The checkers played. The lips prayed. The hands sweated.
Three months, three years, three centuries of harsh wait. But finally desires started rolling: an eternal dream upon the sweet arm of my mother.
Rotten landscapes, broken heavens, sour clouds, and mournful woods were our only fellow travelers. 
Mexicali welcomed us with the smoke of cars and the breath of furnaces. “America” welcomed us with the cold of the poles and the faces of ogres. “Another wait?”
“Yes, our journey is just starting...” 
Another bus, another dream, another start: the hugs, the smiles, the food, the family, a home, a sweet home... 
A year later, my tongue had become two, though one was strongly subjected to the other. Books opened new hallways in the musical labyrinth. School opened the rivers of knowledge. 
However, last night I dreamt with my dead brothers, the ones we left behind... 
 
Viaje Onírico
Cuando cumplí cinco años el Diablo me hizo tres ragalos: un río de sangre, quince casquillos de bala, y un padre muerto...
Un cuervo voló sobre mí aquel día inmortal. La tierra abrío su boca, y yo me sumergí en sus honduras.
El vertigo resurgió seis años después cuando el cuervo se transformó en dos camionetas. Los susurros de las sombras nocturnas nos pedían que desaparecieramos pronto. Y así fue. 
Mi madre y yo cruzamos los frondosos laberintos guatemaltecos, bañados en frío sudor. Cruzamos ríos y miserias, cloacas y puñales.
Cuando llegamos a la ciudad, la acera fue nuestra cama, nuestra almohada; el hielo nocturno, nuestra cobija; el hambre, nuestra única comida. El compás apuntaba hacia el norte, pero mi corazón latía hacia el sur. 
—¿Cuánto falta? —Poco, hijo, poco... 
Oaxaca nos recivió con el humo del cigarro y el polvo del suelo. 
 
El lápiz dibujaba. El damero jugaba. Los labios oraban. Las manos sudaban.
Tres meses, tres años, tres siglos de áspera espera. Pero finalmente las deseos echaron a rodar: un sueño eterno sobre el dulce brazo de mi madre.
Los paisajes podridos, los cielos rotos, las nubes agrias, los bosques tristes, fueron nuestros únicos compañeros de viaje. 
Mexicali nos recivió con el humo del auto y el soplo del horno. “América” nos recivió con el frío del polo y las caras de ogro. —¿Otra espera?
—Sí, el viaje apenas empieza... 
Otro autobus, otro sueño, otro comienzo: los abrazos, las sonrisas, la comida, la familia, el hogar, el dulce hogar... 
Después de un año, mi lengua se dividió en dos, aunque una fuertemente regida por la otra. Los libros abrieron nuevos pasillos en el laberinto musical. La escuela abrió los ríos del conocimiento. 
Sin embargo, anoche soñé con mis hermanos muertos, los que dejamos atrás... 

​ 
HUMANE PORTRAITS
 
“As a core practice of anthropology, engaged ethnography, particularly the art of vivid portrayals and personal journaling, drives the discipline closer to literature. Certainly, many anthropologists…have embellished their ethnographies with colorful details and accounts of their personal experiences and responses to what they observed. Here ethnography borders on autobiography.”
                                                                    Julia Marshall, 2014 
 
Generative Theme: Creating a bridge to humanity through big ideas. Cross-content interactive portraiture that dissolves the walls between us by identifying with the other through art and empathy. 

• Understanding change.
• Telling stories.
• Exploring memory.
• Seeking Truth.
• Distinguishing between pastness and presentences.
• Thinking critically.
• Appreciating chronology, causation and meaning.
• Thinking synthetically.
• Thinking empathetically.
• Thinking ethnographically.
• Serving community.

 
 
 
Overview (Performance of Understanding): We are all immigrants in this country whose stories are recent or generationally much older. Migrations can be about crossing the country from one region to another or about moving from one country to another land. Students will interview and photograph an elder in their family or community, a mentor or friend asking them to relate their immigration story. By using language, writing, technology and journalism to record the migration stories from the community we will, as a class, discover a tapestry of relationships that map out and reflect our own journeys making connections to the past and finding about ourselves in the process. By gathering undocumented narratives as a new form of learning and visual representation we create a counter narrative to the ruling hegemony and establish an aesthetic relationship to our own selves and history. A large-scale portrait will be produced by each student incorporating their subject’s narrative. 
 
Understanding Goals:  

• Students will be able to be develop a multimedia art project and content based on collaboration and introspection.
• Student will be able to compassionately engage another human being and honor their life history.
• Students will be able to work in groups designing, critiquing and creating their projects.
• Students will be able to take an action that will generate a new vision of how to be integrated in the community and thus one’s own historical path.
• Students will be able to create and curate an exhibition and give an artist’s talk to the public.

 
 
Generative Questions:

• What can we learn about migrations and cross-cultural movement?
• Can we use art to change the world? 
• Is it possible to counter, through aesthetic transformation, the historical ruling narrative of a nation one voice, one image, at a time? 
• Instead of building walls between each other how may we bring them down?

 
Vocabulary: Important words for building understanding and shared language

• Narrative
• Empathy
• Compassion
• Service
• Exploration
• Journalism
• Aesthetic 
• Transformation
• Ethnography
• Anthropology
• Creative Strategies

 
Materials: 

• Pen, paper
• Poster size sheet of paper
• Sumi ink
• Drawing tools, Derwent pencils, erasures
• Glue, scissors

 
Equipment: 

• Projector
• Light box

• Cell phone, Recording app

• Computer, animation app

 
 
Demonstration/ Presentation/Discussion: Slide presentations accompany each day’s lesson with clear instructions, images, exemplars. Humane Portraits is a multimedia narrative inquiry project, centered in drawing and writing, that depicts the accounts of elders and mentors creating an integrated life experience for the student.
 
Generative Exercises:

• Employ Research Workbook (RWB) for all inquiry concepts and ideas including drawing, collaging, creative strategies.
• Invite an elder or mentor for interviewing.
• Devise a list of questions for your subject.
• Record the interview on cell phone recording app.
• Upload that file to desktop and label professionally.
• Have your subject write their immigrant story on paper.

 
Guiding Questions: Focused questions that guide thinking: Move from concrete and 
specific to abstract. Move from what is known, to how new ideas connect, to imagining something new
 
Students at Work: (Performances of understanding are generalized. This is a 3 week unit).

1. Intro to RWB
2. Intro to project via slide presentation
3. Intro to Creative Strategies
4. Intro to contemporary graphic drawing techniques
5. Break into groups
6. Design and planning-differentiated approaches via Creative Strategies.
7. List questions for subject
8. Interview subject
9. Gather materials
10. Begin portrait using creative strategies
11. Group discussions
12. Goal setting
13. Project completion

 
Closure: 

• Class Critique

• Grading on project following rubric.
• School Exhibition with artist talk.
• Film documentation of exhibition.
• Posting Exhibition Documentary on school social media platform. 

 
Reflection Tools and Techniques:

• Research Workbooks.
• Learning/thinking walls.
• Journal entries.
• Peer reviews.
• Further art activities. 
• Student follow-up writing piece

 
 
 
 
Reflection Questions: (Sentence starters available.)
 
Student follow-up writing piece

1. What have you learned?
2. How can you apply this approach for other projects?
3. What are some difficulties you encountered?
4. Can you name those project ideas?

 
 
 
 
Ongoing Assessment: 

• Questionnaires-Do Now.
• Quizzes.
• Reflective writings.
• Instructor observation of students at work. 

 
Summative Assessment: 
 
Criteria for Assessment:

• Daily Do-Nows
• Goal setting
• Class Critiques
• Rubric 
• Exhibition
• Student follow-up writing piece

 
Curriculum Connections:

• Social sciences
• Language arts 
• Ethnography