What's the Dream Flag Project?
That's a question we might want to start
with to let our students know that we're doing
something that's not just in our school, but in
schools across the country and the world. This
year, there will be students as far away as
Nepal making Dream Flags, and there are students
in at least nineteen of the United States.
Here area some places to
see what Dream Flags is all about:
Participant
List |
List of the 55 schools
that have signed up so far. Some have
links to their school sites. See where
they are. |
|
Look Who's Dreaming |
A partial list of
participants with pictures, some linked
photo galleries, etc. Some include links
to Yahoo Maps to show where they are. |
Poem
Videos |
Videos of students from
different schools reading their Dream
Flag poems. (PC format or for Mac's with
Windows Media Player.) |
Flag Examples
Hand Written
Typed
Others |
These are examples of
flags made by students from different
schools. Some show flags where the poems
is written by hand. Another sample shows
flags where the words are printed onto
the cloth (more complicated.) There are
many ways to make them. |
Students
may want to get going right away, but it's great to start
with a few Hughes poems that your students will
like. "The Dream Keeper" is a sort of theme poem
for this project. It's an easy one to memorize.
We can
sing it as well with "The Dream Flag Song" Here
are some useful links.
Copy of
"The Dream Keeper"
Hear "The Dream Flag Song."
Music and words for "The Dream Flag Song."
Hughes Background
It's also
nice to start with some background on Langston
Hughes. There are lots of books with this kind
of information and
some excellent web sites as well. Some of the
sites have Hughes poetry and even a recording of
him reciting his work! We have a list below at
Langston Hughes and Writing Resources.
Birthday
Present for Langston Hughes
If you want to celebrate the birthday of Mr.
Hughes, here's a small-group assignment to get
it going. Groups have to create gifts of word
for Langston Hughes with their own idea or one
from the list.
Birthday Present for Langston Hughes:
Word document or
Web Page
Dream
Flags Lesson Plan for
Elementary and Middle School
If you want a lesson plan for the whole project, we have one designed
for six forty-minute class periods.
Click here to see a printable page of the plan.
It covers an introduction of Langston Hughes,
some study of his poetry, and drafting of
original dream poems by students.
Prayer
Flag Background
Another place to start is with the idea that
this project will take our dreams and make them
fly. Our inspiration comes from the concept of
Prayer Flags, and here's a page with links to
many examples along with some explanation of how
they are intended to bring good wishes and
positive hope to all:
Prayer Flags Page
