Rock Your World

This segment of reading is another emotional roller coaster! All characters are experiencing loss and triumph that may be hard to measure for an onlooker. I found myself really thinking about sacrifice and invisibility. It called to mind a poem that I think would be so well suited as a bell work/journal entry/discussion starter. The poem is called "Invisibility" and it's written by Renato Rosaldo. It would be meaningful to consider this poem in relation to each character, I think. Here's a link to the poem: https://poets.org/poem/invisibility---I'm uploading it as well.

Okay - so this section has me thinking about quite a bit.... Mañana - This is a motif has come up in earlier chapters and appears again in these sections. For the characters it is a seems to be a promise for a future that is unknown, though a promise that feels empty because it is repeated over and over again. The first time (I think) that a direct connection is made within these stories - when Isabel's grandfather mummers the name "The St. Louis" while everyone was suggesting names for the boat. These three stories have so many parallels - but now they seem to start to intersect. I immediately thought - could this be Officer Padron? I wonder if all students would pick up on this connection... And then there's this passage from Mahmoud's chapter 36 - "They only see us when we do something they don’t want us to do, Mahmoud realized. The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. When they stayed where they were supposed to be—in the ruins of Aleppo or behind the fences of a refugee camp—people could forget about them. But when refugees did something they didn’t want them to do—when they tried to cross the border into their country, or slept on the front stoops of their shops, or jumped in front of their cars, or prayed on the decks of their ferries—that’s when people couldn’t ignore them any longer. Mahmoud’s first instinct was to disappear below decks. To be invisible. Being invisible in Syria had kept him alive. But now Mahmoud began to wonder if being invisible in Europe might be the death of him and his family. If no one saw them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really happening here."Gratz, Alan. Refugee (p. 214). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition. This is at the heart of the stories of refugees everywhere and at all times. They relay on others to see what is happening to them and to act in response. This is certainly a passage to have students respond to. I might prompt students to think about how to be actively involved in seeing what might otherwise be invisible to them in the world.