Video
Ever-Changing Currents Mini-Lesson
Transcript
Maggie: Hi everyone. My name is Maggie and I’m a ranger at Niobrara National Scenic River in Valentine, Nebraska. This presentation is on Ever-Changing Currents of the Niobrara River Valley. This mini-lesson is brought to you by the Nebraska Writing Project and Niobrara National Scenic River, a unit of the National Park Service. And it’s funded by the National Writing Project. Niobrara National Scenic River is 76 miles of wild and scenic river in North Central Nebraska. We boast a rich history and culture along with recreation, scenery, wildlife, geology and paleontology.
This mini-lesson is one of four that we’re releasing in the Ever-Changing Currents Lessons. There are three other lessons that will cover geology and paleontology, the caretakers and peoples of the Niobrara along with the Buffalo Soldiers and dominant narratives. The goal of the Ever-Changing Current Lessons are to explore the Niobrara River’s unique values through guided writing. So for this mini-lesson we are going to be talking about rivers. So when writing about rivers, you want to consider that every group of people chooses how to refer to themselves in their own society.
There’s a poet named Langston Hughes and he’s one of the foremost American poets of the 20th century. And one of his famous poems is “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” He uses the word Negro as an acceptable term that people of African heritage refer to themselves as in the early part of the 20th century. So Hughes uses the term Negro to share his thoughts on how African cultures thrived and how he, as an American acknowledged his heritage. We’re going to ask you to access Langston Hughes’ video on The Negro Speaks of Rivers. And this is actually a video where he reads the poem and gives a little more backstory about how it was written and why, and what inspired him to write it. So please access that video.
The full title of it on YouTube is, “Langston Hughes reads The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” So we are going to do a little bit of pre-writing discussion and then we’ll do a writing prompt. So in your pre-writing discussion, turn to your neighbors, or whoever is with you, and just think and talk about rivers that you know and the effect they’ve had on you. How does the river speak to you and how does it reflect who you are or who you’ll become? How does it reflect your community and society, and how does the river or how does your community and society reflect the river? Take a little time, turn to your neighbor, maybe you’ll have some stories to share. And think about maybe how we refer to ourselves.
Like we talked about in the earlier slide that every person gets to decide or every culture decides how they’re referred to in their own age and time. But you’re going to be writing a poem about a river that you know and how it reflects you. Take about five minutes to write this poem and when you’re done share your writing with a partner or small group. And then listen and appreciate the voice and words of your partners or your group. If you want to share this writing with us, we are the Niobrara National Scenic River, a unit of the National Park Service. And this lesson along with other lessons can be accessed at our website. And feel free to share your writing with us at Niobrara_nsr@nps.gov. We would be very excited to hear from you. Please enjoy our Ever-Changing Currents lessons. Thank you.
[Audio Ends] [00:03:53]
Description
Mini-lesson introduction to Ever-Changing Currents
10 minutes classroom time
Students will discover what makes the Niobrara National Scenic River unique and examine a river from their own life following the model of Langston Hughes, a 20th century poet, and create a river poem themselves.
Duration
3 minutes, 53 seconds
Credit
NPS and Nebraska Writing Project, Funded by the National Writing Project
Date Created
03/08/2021
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