Build Me Session 4 Session 4 - This Is Me

PiXL Build-Up Build Me Session 4 Session 4 - This is Me

You will:

• Understand who you are and the importance of being unique. • Evaluate others identity and reflect on common themes. • Identify how you can be a better version of who you are. Your Identity

If someone asked you to describe yourself in three words, what would you say? Your Identity

Would your three words change depending on WHO asked you?

For example, would you change your answer depending on what your friends think or what your teacher or parents expect you to say?

Are you happy with who you are and who you are becoming? We are all different

We can be very Human beings judgemental, mean can be wonderful in the way they are kind, and sometimes lack funny, considerate respect for people and build relationships, who are different to but human beings can us. also be very destructive. Task: This is Me

Some of the best selling music in recent years have been anthems like ‘This is Me’. Watch the video and listen to the words.

Reduce the song down into three key messages about what the singer is saying about who she is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEJd2RyGm8Q This is Me

‘This is Me’ is an anthem for misfits, people who feel they have been rejected for being different.

The bottom line is that we are ALL different – not one person is the same as another. Our fingerprints are all totally unique. The same, but different

TASK: • Write down why you think human beings want to make everyone the same as them. • List three reasons why we do this in school, at work and anywhere else in life. Being unique is important

Two very visible people in the media who are unique and proud of it are Lady Gaga and Paloma Faith.

Lady Gaga Paloma Faith

Images from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11458737/Why-is-Paloma-Faith-so-famous.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHey3FIyujQ https://popculture.com/celebrity/2019/06/17/lady-gaga Great Leaders: Lady Gaga

TASK: Click on the link and listen to what Simon Sinek, a very famous speaker on leadership, says about Lady Gaga:

Simon Sinek: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek/videos/great-leaders-lady-gaga/309959816571981/ Poem: And still I Rise

Another very famous lady who believed in fighting for a cause, and being proud of who she is, was Maya Angelou.

Listen to her poem ‘And Still I Rise’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0 Poem Analysis

• It is about the struggle to overcome prejudice and injustice. • It is like an anthem, it offers hope to those who have been treated badly. • It reminds us that there is always hope, even when people abuse their power. • It sounds a bit like a hymn with the repetition of the same line ‘still I rise’. • It has a clear message: no matter how cruel or how that cruelty happens, the victim will rise up and the slave will overcome. • Nelson Mandela read this poem at his inauguration in 1994, having spent 27 years in prison. • She is encouraging people not to give in to injustice, torture, bullying and humiliation. Poem Analysis

• Look at the way she uses ‘you’ like she is speaking to someone she has in mind. • She refers to natural imagery, like moons and suns and tides and black oceans – the things that are everlasting and magnificent. The poem points to things that are so much bigger than us. • There is a sense of defiance in this poem. • The use of the words sassiness and sexiness imply self confidence. • There are lots of rhetorical questions which mount up to convict the person she is talking to and to make them seem ridiculous and narrow minded. Poem: And still I Rise

TASK: • Read the analysis of this poem over again. • Can you turn the poem into four images that best represent what it is about? Poem: And still I Rise

TASK:

• Now turn those pictures into three words. • Now write a sentence about each of those words - what is Angelou’s message? • What do Lady Gaga, Paloma Faith, and Maya Angelou have in common as their message? A sense of identity

Lady Gaga, Maya Angelou and Paloma Faith don’t always feel as brave and as confident as they appear.

They don’t live like they are ‘fierce’ every day, but they do try and live their lives with a sense of identity. They feel the fear of being themselves, and do it anyway.

They could be described as: Enthusiastic Principled Determined We can always be better

We can have our identity and be determined to be US at the same time as realising that we could also be better. We can work on our weaknesses.

‘This is ME’ is a good thing to know, but ‘This is WHO I WANT TO BE’ is perhaps even better. Who do you want to be?

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