Where Are You a Local?

About This Lesson

Building on the previous lesson featuring Adi Alsaid’s short story “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving,” this two-day lesson aims to foster a more nuanced and empathetic understanding of identity and belonging that extends beyond geographic borders. Students will engage with Fatimah Asghar and Eve L. Ewing’s visual poem and Taiye Selasi’s TEDGlobal Talk to explore how traditional notions of origin tied to countries and borders may not fully capture an individual’s experiences or sense of belonging.

This lesson’s texts invite students to explore the complexities of the question “Where are you from?”—a question often asked out of curiosity that may stir feelings of loss, exclusion, and otherness, particularly for those who have experienced migration or displacement. It can make individuals feel like outsiders, even in places they consider home. 

In her TEDGlobal Talk, writer and photographer Taiye Selasi suggests a more inclusive question, one that encourages sharing stories about the significant places, people, and experiences that make us the unique individuals that we are. Students will apply Selasi’s ideas to their own lives in order to gain insight into how they can foster a sense of belonging for themselves and others. This exploration prepares them for the concluding lesson of the unit, where they will synthesize their understanding and consider practical applications of these ideas in their own communities.

Essential Questions

• Why do people move? 
• How can our migration experiences and those of our ancestors shape our sense of who we are and where we belong? 
• How can literature and storytelling broaden our perspective and build empathy for the human experience of migration?

Guiding Questions

• How can the question “Where are you from?” be problematic?
• What else might we ask to discover someone’s story?

Facing History Learning Outcomes

• Examine the many factors that can shape an individual’s identity.
• Critically and ethically analyze thematic development and literary craft in order to draw connections between the text and their lives.
• Evaluate a text for the ways in which it upholds and/or challenges stereotypes of individuals and groups.

Lesson Plan

Day 1 

Activity 1: Warm Up with a Visual Poem

Project the image of the visual poem “From” by Fatimah Asghar and Eve L. Ewing so that it is displayed as students enter the classroom. Let students know that they will be examining the poem and what it suggests about the question “Where are you from?” Similar to “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving,” this poem is not presented in a linear format, and it is okay to be confused or feel like you don’t “get it,” especially at first glance.

Give students a copy of the “From” by Fatimah Asghar and Eve L. Ewing reading, which includes an accessible text version of the visual poem in addition to the image. Let students know that they will be writing a See, Think, Wonder response in their journals to help them gather information about the poem before exploring its possible meanings.  

Pose the following questions one at a time. Pause after each question to give students time to respond in their journals. Let them know that they will be sharing with a partner.

• What do you see? What details stand out? 
• What do you think is going on? What makes you say that?
• What does this image make you wonder? What broader questions does it raise for you?

Invite students to share their observations with a partner. Then ask for volunteers to share with the class, starting with what they saw and working your way to what they wonder. If you are projecting the poem onto a whiteboard or Smartboard, you can have students come up to the front to record their ideas or do so yourself as they share. 

If allowed in your school, consider inviting students who can access the Google Translate app or an AI tool on their phones to see what they can learn about the text in the left and center columns of the poem. Remind students that these tools are not 100% accurate! 

Finally, choose two or three of the following questions for students to discuss in pairs, small groups, or as a class.

• What is the story of this poem? In other words, what do you think it is about? Why do you think that?
• How do the visual elements of the poem (the fonts, colors, shapes, etc.) impact the way you read and think about it? How might the experience of reading and thinking about the poem be different if it were presented in a more traditional form? 
• What does the poem suggest about the potential impact of the question “Where are you from?” How do you know?
• When might the question be problematic or harmful? When might someone welcome it? 
• What might Fatimah Asghar and Eve L. Ewing want you, the reader, to think about after reading “From”? Can you say more about why you think that?

Activity 2: Watch the First Part of a TED Talk That Explores the Question “Where Are You From?”

Explain to students that they will be watching the first part of a TEDGlobal presentation with writer and photographer Taiye Selasi called “Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Ask Where I’m a Local.” They will finish the video in the next class period. In her presentation, Selasi challenges the question “Where are you from?” After trying to answer it herself, she offers a different way of locating ourselves in the world. 

Pass out the handout Where Are You a Local? Viewing Questions, which includes questions for the video and an activity based on Selasi’s presentation. Let students know that you will pause the video three times so they can process what they are viewing in small groups. Move students into groups of three or four so they are ready to chat.

Play the video, pausing at the end of each of the following sections. Direct students to the corresponding section on their handout so they can discuss the questions. Solicit ideas from the class before playing the next section of the video. 

• Section 1: 00:00–02:32
• Section 2: 02:33–06:26
• Section 3: 06:27–09:00 

After students have had a chance to complete the chart for Section 3, ask for volunteers to share their ideas with the class. Encourage students to record new ideas on their own handouts.

Activity 3: Model Selasi’s Framework and Assign Homework

Write the following words across the board: Rituals, Relationships, Restrictions. Then start to do a Think Aloud where you fill in one or two ideas from your own experiences in each column, explaining their relevance as you write. 

Then direct students to the chart on the final page of their handout. Read the instructions out loud and let students know that they should complete their charts for homework and bring them with them for the next class. (See the “Day 1 Homework” section below for instructions.)

Day 1 Homework: Reflecting on Rituals, Relationships, and Restrictions
 

Instruct students to complete the chart on the final page of the Where Are You a Local? Viewing Questions handout by listing their daily rituals, meaningful relationships, and the restrictions they encounter in their lives. Let them know that they will be using the chart in the next lesson to help them complete a short writing task.

Day 2 

Activity 1: Show the Next Part of Selasi’s Presentation

Start the class by asking students to take out their Where Are You a Local? Viewing Questions handout from the previous lesson and turn to the page with the chart, which they completed for homework. 

Explain to students that in this lesson, they will finish watching Selasi’s presentation in two sections. Rather than small-group discussions, today they will use different discussion formats to debrief each section. In the first section of the talk that they will watch, Selasi applies her “rituals, relationships, restrictions” framework to the experiences of two of her friends. Explain that it isn’t important for students to retain every detail from this section. They should focus on why Selasi includes these examples. Then they will have the opportunity to add new ideas to their own charts. 

Play Section 4 (09:01-10:58) of Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Ask Where I’m a Local. Then facilitate a short class discussion: 

• Why do you think Selasi shares Olu and Udo’s experiences? 
• How do their experiences help demonstrate why the question “Where are you from?” can be problematic or limiting?
• Invite students to add any new ideas to their “Rituals, Relationships, Restrictions” charts after hearing Selasi’s examples. 

Activity 2: Finish Selasi’s Presentation and Facilitate a Class Discussion

Play Section 5 (10:59–15:52) of Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Ask Where I’m a Local.  

Then use the Concentric Circles teaching strategy to debrief Selasi’s presentation. After you have arranged the class into two concentric circles, project the following questions one at a time. Read each question out loud and have students discuss it for about two minutes. 

In the presentation, Selasi observes: “It’s possible that without realizing it, we’re playing a power game, especially in the context of multi-ethnic countries. As any recent immigrant knows, the question ‘Where are you from?’ or ‘Where are you really from?’ is often code for ‘Why are you here?’” 

• What connections can you make between Selasi’s observations and the poem “From” by Fatimah Asghar and Eve L. Ewing? What makes you say that? 
• As you learned from Selasi and Asghar and Ewing, for many people, the question “Where are you from?” can feel “othering” or is too complicated to answer quickly. Can you think of an alternative question that would feel more inclusive and might invite storytelling (for example, “Who is home for you? What’s a story about that person?”)? 
• What ideas or lessons from the poem and/or Selasi’s presentation can you take into your own life? 

After students return to their seats, invite them to share ideas or questions that arose in their discussions.

Activity 3: Write a Personal Reflection in Response to Selasi’s Presentation

Explain to students that they will spend the remainder of the class responding in writing the question “Where are you a local?” Let students know if you plan to collect and assess their work. 

Pass out the Where Are You a Local? Written Reflection handout and read the instructions to the class. Then provide students with quiet writing time to develop their ideas. 

When there are about five minutes left in the class period, ask if any students want to read aloud their introduction sentence (their completed sentence stem) from the handout. You can model with your own introduction and then invite volunteers to share. If you have many volunteers, consider using the Wraparound strategy to keep things moving.