Educational activities by
Janet Salmons.
Salmons and Associates

Photographs by
Joanna B. Pinneo

Leaders’ Guide: African American Rite of Passage

The African American Rites of Passage story easily lends itself to a rich exploration of several important topics relevant to girls’ lives as they enter their communities as women.

Topics to Explore:

1. Community acknowledgement and support for changing from a girl to a woman

2. Becoming a part of a larger family of women

3. Acknowledging ancestors and sharing stories

4. Celebrating African American culture

Whether you’re a parent, classroom teacher, or youth leader, you know the importance of engaging young people in a variety of in-depth learning experiences and activities that help them to "process" and to better understand the material being taught. While simply reading each story may be sufficient for some girls to prompt self-reflection and learning, others may need additional support.

Grrlstories.org offers this support through a variety of structured activities. Parents who wish to organize meaningful learning experiences for (and with) their daughters can use these activities at home. Teachers and/or youth leaders who wish to engage groups of young women in active learning and discussion can use them in the classroom.

1. Community acknowledgement and support

A. Soul Food

Suggested Use: This is a useful exercise for rejuvenating a group.

Goals and Learning Objectives

To recognize the strengths that each member of the team brings to the group.

To build a supportive environment, focused on strengths rather than weaknesses.

Materials Needed

Paper Plates, Colored Markers

Directions

1. The group forms a seated circle

2. Each person writes their name in the middle of the paper plate

3. Team members pass plates to the right. Each person writes one word describing a strength or positive characteristic about the person whose name is on the plate.

4. This continues until the team members have their own plates in front of them and everybody has signed everybody else’s plate.

5. The plates can be used to decorate a meeting space for the group.

6. The group reflects on the process of identifying each other’s strengths using the following as a guide: What did you learn about the group from this process? Share one strength or characteristic written on your plate; what surprised you most about what the group wrote?

Variations

This can be a verbal exercise: each person says something they appreciate about the person to their left.

This can be a mural exercise: write each person’s name on the wall and have participants write strengths under each person’s name.

2. Becoming part of a larger family of women

A. Women Leaders and Role Models: Poster Presentations

Suggested Use: This activity creates a product that can decorate a classroom or meeting space.

Goals and Learning Objectives

To learn about women who made significant achievements around the world.

To gain an understanding of research methods

To learn about the myriad of possibilities for expressing womanhood

Materials Needed

Poster Board

Construction Paper

Markers

Glue

Research Materials: Biographies, Encyclopedia’s, Web Access, Quotations

Directions

This project can be done individually or in small groups.

Spend time researching women, online or in the library. Choose one woman who inspires you.

Select quotes from or related to that woman.

Collect art materials that reflect the woman you have chosen.

Create a poster that illustrates the importance of the women and how what she accomplished is relevant to you and your life.

Hang posters around the room and have each person present their poster. The presentation might include discussion of:

1. The leadership qualities that distinguish her.

2. Ways someone develops these characteristics.

3. Why this person is inspiring to you.

Variations

Identify the formative experience in the life of this woman and write a story about how the experience influenced her life’s direction.

Discuss the larger global issues surrounding each of the women selected.

3. Acknowledging ancestors and sharing stories

A. Coming of Age Across Generations

Suggested Use: This activity can be done as an intergenerational family project, or a community service-learning project.

Goals and Learning Objectives

To encourage inter-generational dialogue

To develop interviewing and listening skills.

To build social history of women’s coming of age

Materials Needed

Directions

Girls interview mothers and grandmothers, or other women from mothers’ and grandmothers’ generations, about coming of age celebrations and observances. They can ask questions such as these:

1. At what age was a girl considered a woman? What signs indicated that she was becoming a woman—physical or social?

2. What did your mother’s mother tell her about the meaning and significance of being a woman? What did your grandmother’s mother tell her?

3. How did the community recognize her as a woman? By a celebration? A ritual? Or was this transition acknowledged in the immediate family or privately?

4. Were special foods, clothing or music part of the rites of passage? Are these special symbols of the rites of passage drawn from historical, cultural, or family traditions?

5. What freedoms were allowed, what responsibilities expected after the rite of passage into womanhood?

6. Were girls’ transitions to womanhood observed differently that boys’ transition into manhood?

7. What is your favorite memory about becoming a woman—either from a celebration or a personal experience?

8. What do you feel is most important for girls today who are coming of age?

After recording the stories, girls can share them with the group to compare and contrast the rites of passage stories from the different cultures and traditions.

Follow up questions to the girls may include:

How do the girls expect to celebrate their daughters’ coming of age?

What will they tell their daughters about becoming a woman?

Variations

Invite women from various traditions and cultures to meet with the group. They can form a panel and answer questions from the girls, or work with the girls in small groups.

Create a play based on the stories.

Use a camera and/or video camera to document the interviews

4. Celebrating African American Culture

A. African American Influences

Suggested Use: This exercise combines research, writing and web research. It is appropriate for girls with a young adult reading level or teens. It can be used in a class or group, or as an informal way to have fun on the computer at home with parents.

Goals and Learning Objectives

Learn about African American music and culture

Learn about African American contributions to American music and culture

Use web for research; write summary of findings

Materials Needed

Computer with internet access

Directions

Provide age-appropriate questions for girls to answer based on their web research. For example:

1. Locate an artist, using one of the websites listed below, or your own research.

2. Describe the artist and his or her work.

3. What inspired this artist to create the work?

4. What obstacles did he or she have to overcome to become an artist?

5. How did this artist’s work influence American culture or arts?

6. Ask each girl to share her discoveries with the group.

Music

Sarah Vaughn http://www.wntb.com/blackachievers/SarahVaughn/ and http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_vaughan_sarah.htm

Aretha Franklin

http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/franklin.html

and http://www.donegal.k12.pa.us/dms/kif/11/summaryb.html

History of Jazz: Listen to lectures given at the Kennedy Center http://town.hall.org/Archives/radio/Kennedy/Taylor/ or explore the PBS Jazz website http://www.pbs.org/jazz and JazzKids http://www.pbs.org/jazz/kids/

Established in 1991, the Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) is a repository of materials covering various musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era. http://www.indiana.edu/~aaamc/

Visual Art:

African-Americans in the Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective http://www.brooklyn.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aavaahp.htm

Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community Http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/

Literature

Alice Walker http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/w/walker21.htm and http://members.tripod.com/chrisdanielle/alicemain.html

Toni Morrison http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/morrison/morrison_toni0.html and http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/morrison.html and

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/

More Resources:

Bringing the Light Into a New Day: African Centered Rites of Passage
by Lathardus Goggins II, Emily D. Gunter (Preface), Paul, Jr. Hill (Preface) (1998); ISBN: 0966397207

African-American Voices in Children's Fiction: A list of books http://als.lib.wi.us/AACList.html

Teacher's Guide: Afro-American Children's Literature

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/4967/afroamer.html