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The Turf, The Village
For this News Break, we follow one Youth Radio commentator on a trip to Ghana, in West Africa. Dru Harshaw was a senior in high school when he traveled with his school to Ghana, having worked with classmates to raise money for the trip. It was the first time Dru had left the United States, and the experience profoundly affected him.
Still, it wasn’t until Dru initiated a “deep” conversation with a drum-maker he met in Ghana that he began to understand the purpose and meaning of his trip: to understand his “point of reference” back home, in Oakland, California. Dru couldn’t get Oakland out of his mind or dreams while he was in Ghana, and in this commentary he shares his own dawning understanding of why.
You might “read” Dru’s commentary as a form of travel writing—an approach that moves beyond the standard “what I did this summer” frame often applied to student writing about school vacations or family holidays. Dru’s piece is also an exploration of identity, and a way of mapping a very personal as well as social, cultural, and historical geography that crisscrosses time and national borders. For these reasons, his story provides rich material for discussion in English, history, geography, social studies, and ethnic studies classes.
“The Turf, The Village” reveals how this young commentator, like so many of us, needed to go away in order to begin to grasp his sense home:
I was absorbing so many different cultures and ways of life. I began to notice a trend in my sleeping habits: every time I closed my eyes I had dreams of Oakland and visions of my home: childhood mischief, attractive women, even street signs. This confused me. With the beauty of Ghana right in front of me, why was my mind back home? … No matter where my mission might take me, I know that my village will be there for me.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.2 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.4 COMMUNICATION SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.5 COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.10 APPLYING NON-ENGLISH PERSPECTIVES
NL-ENG.K-12.12 APPLYING LANGUAGE SKILLS
Subject: GEOGRAPHY
NSS-G.K-12.1 THE WORLD IN SPATIAL TERMS
NSS-G.K-12.2 PLACES AND REGIONS
NSS-G.K-12.4 HUMAN SYSTEMS
NSS-G.K-12.6 THE USES OF GEOGRAPHY
Subject: HISTORY
NSS-USH.5-12.1 ERA 1: THREE WORLDS MEET (BEGINNINGS TO 1620)
NSS-USH.5-12.2 ERA 2: COLONIZATION AND SETTLEMENT (1585-1763)
NSS-USH.9-12.10 ERA 10: CONTEMPORARY UNITED STATES (1968 TO THE PRESENT)
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Language Arts:
Home:
Here is a writing activity for students to process the questions: Where are you from and what does “home” mean to you? Imagine that you are describing your home from galaxies away, to the planet, to the continent, to the country, to the state, to the city, to the block, to the street, to the home. Describe it as you get closer and closer until you are finally there. What does home look like, sound like, feel like, smell like, and taste like?
Compare and Contrast: Drawing from personal experiences, or by interviewing someone from a different country, in addition to using National Geographic magazines, websites, and other resources, students can learn about another country and culture. By creating a Venn diagram based on home and another country, students can highlight differences and similarities to preface making a book complete with images and writing.
Away from home: In Dru’s words, “With the beauty of Ghana right in front of me, why was my mind back home?” What does your class think? Drawing from personal experiences, have any students ever felt homesick? Are any students in the class from other countries? What are their experiences of being in the United States? What moments or events initiate thoughts of home?
Dreams: Dru has vivid dreams about his home in Oakland while he is in Ghana. Kobe tells him people only remember the dreams that affect them emotionally. Students could journal their own dreams: What are some of the most important places that have shown up in your dreams? What do you think the appearance of those places tells you about their emotional significance in your “waking” life?
Comfort Levels: Dru describes Kobe as someone he felt comfortable talking to about his dreams. Some questions for students to explore in a journal might be: Who do you talk to and confide in? How do you decide that you can open up to someone? What do you look for in a person who can give you advice?
Social Studies:
Mapping: Use a world map, allow students to figure out where Dru was in Africa and calculate how far away from home he was.
From Africa to the U.S. to Africa to the U.S.: Taking into consideration the history of the United States, Black people were stolen from Africa, enslaved in the United States, and have created a whole new culture, which San Francisco State University professor Dr. Oba T’Shaka describes as indigenous to the United States. Why do students suppose Dru, an African-American, feels that the United States is more his home than the African country of Ghana?
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Media coverage of Africa: When your students think of the continent of Africa, what are the first associations that come to mind? Students can look up images and other articles on countries in Africa to find out how the continent is represented in current events. What are some ways that Dru’s depiction of Ghana differs from the typical media coverage of Africa? What are the similarities?
Music of the World: Dru’s piece incorporates the music of a Ghanaian Easter festival. Create a musical soundtrack of songs that represent home. Students should analyze the lyrics of their songs and talk about why those words and references represent home to them. They can then analyze how the quality of the music itself, separate from the lyrics—its rhythms, beats, and resonances—contributes to the song’s meaning.
Point of Reference: Kobe says Dru’s dreams of Oakland reveal his “point of reference” during his visit to Ghana. If you check out Dru’s bio, you will find that he has been exposed to a broad range of social, cultural, and academic experiences. How does having different points of reference open up his perspective on the world? Can students cite some other examples of articles, books, or stories they have read where a protagonist has similar experiences that shape his/her outlook? Are there ways to discover points of reference without getting on an airplane and traveling for miles and miles? Through what points of reference do students see the world? Students can explore a new sense of place or perspective hidden within their own community or neighborhood, and write an account of how that experience affects their sense of home.
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
Commentator Pendarvis “Dru” Harshaw was raised around all three corners of Oakland, California. After attending Edna Brewer Middle School, he was granted a scholarship to the Athenian School, a college preparatory school in Danville, California. He struggled mightily with the social scene (only about 20 out of 400 students were African-American), rigorous academics, and financial flaunting by some of his privileged classmates. But in his senior year, Dru was elected Student Body President, accepted by a historically Black university, and got the chance to go on the trip to Ghana that he describes in this commentary. After returning to Oakland, Dru graduated from high school, decided to defer his college acceptance, and is now owner of “Pens and Pistols Productions,” a media and music production label. At Youth Radio, Dru does his Clark Kent impression and produces stories for local and national outlets on topics ranging from The Millions More Movement, to Boppers (younger girls attracted to older men), to the martyrdom of recently executed Stanley “Tookie” Williams.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• National Geographic Website
• Lyrics Search Engine
• ReadWriteThink: Brainstorming Tools
• "Africa in the Western Media" (U Penn African Studies 02Oct98)
• Teachers Guide to Curriculum about Africa (Exploring Africa)
• "Out of Africa: Western Media Stereotypes Shape Images" (Media & Values Winter 1993)
• "An Unseen World: How the Media Portrays the Poor" (UNESCO Courier Nov01)
• Africans on Africa: Debt, People, Governance, Colonialism (BBC News Jul05)
• "Media’s Negative Images of Africa are No Accident" (Chicago Defender 27Jun05)
• "NGOs Present False Images of Africa" (News and Views from Africa 02)
• "Africa in International Media" (Mathaba News Network 25Sep05)
• "Mining Sector Aims to be Kinder, Gentler, Greener" (Planet Ark 15May02)
Off-Line Resources:
• The Integration Trap: The Generation Gap By Dr. Oba T'Shaka
• Images of Africa: Stereotypes and Realities Edited by Daniel M. Mengara
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa By Walter Rodney
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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