bmaddox
Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:17:52 -0700
Have you ever encountered a teachable moment and had it swarm on you? I know all us literacy teachers on this list would like to hear about it. Heres what happened to me last week. My teachable moment has turned into a unit of several days duration and I can actually align it with LA standards!
Realizing last week that the lack of ability to say the Pledge each day among my 8th grade English class (kids whose achievement levels are too low to qualify for Read 180 or the Americas Choice Ramp-up classes, resource kids, and nonfluent ESL kids) was due to their not knowing the pledge, rather than to lethargy, I presented a mini-lesson on the pledge and its background. I had asked them to write the pledge beforehand, so I quickly learned that they didnt know the words (A legion, a legen, invisible, agents, etc), couldn't punctuate it, and made no cognitive meaning with it. The pledge was a meaning-free list of words. I used the Elmo to share a little picture book illustrating phrases of the pledge with pictures from around the US, then had them copy the pledge, chunked so that they got the phrasing. (now, the old hippy, Vietnam-protesting me was agog, but you know all us hippies were patriotic, despite popular opinion) They seemed to enjoy modeling how to say the pledge, and willingly practiced phrasing and expression. I tried to remain nonjudgemental, explaining that I wanted them to know the pledge so they understood what it means to make a pledge and that it represents a commitment to some kind of behavior, etc. They bought in. We did a little grammar with the pledge, tooprepositional phrases, then nouns of various types, then clauses and punctuation. The pledge is going to be one of our anchor pieces this year. I plan to recommend the principal ask students from my class to lead the pledge on the intercomwhy should pre-AP kids be the only ones to do that? Next, we discussed the meaning of the flags designthe symbols and the colors. That seemed to catch their interests, perhaps because they are beginning to be able to make the intellectual leap into abstract and metaphorical thinking. Since they were intrigued by the fact that the USA flag represents ideas and qualities, I asked each student to make a personal flag, using three colors and 2 to 4 symbols, that would represent his/her personality. 90% of them are constitutionally unable to complete homework and probably didnt have colored pencils or markers or crayons at home, so we finished the flags in class the next day. Very, very clever symbolic thinkingThe Hispanic and Chinese kids incorporated quite a bit of their former countries. All were engaged in creating their flags for about 40 minutes. So much for making sure to change activities every 20 minutes, as were mandated to do. Finally, I asked them to explain how their flags represented their personalitieswhy they chose the colors and symbols they used. Once again, I failed to build some background. They had no concepts of color symbolism! Ive created a couple of handouts on meanings of colors and found this perky website on the meaning of colors: http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/colors/Colors.html The little movies are very clever and the explanations of the color symbolism will be understandable to the kids, with some scaffolding from my inclusion coteacher and me. We're going to readdress colors and symbols tomorrow, and I envision that some of the kids will want to redo their flags. Later in the week, I'll ask the library clerk to laminate the flags and we'll post them and the kids' explanations for parent open house. So, from a desire to make sure the kids could say the pledge (and I explained why i dont say under God, since when I memorized the pledge, those words werent included), quite a bit of learning ensued. The kids are proud they can say the pledge, and are now hip to the concept of pledgingthey realize they are making a public commitment to be loyal to the concepts represented by the flag. My coteacher asked them what other pledges people make, sometimes without thinking of the fact they are making a promise to do something. They knew about pledging to tell the truth in court, etcbut were shocked to learn that getting married involves a pledge. My coteacher suggested that was because they had never been to wedding and their parents were not married. Do you think? -- Bev in Little Rock, obviously inspired by Tena in Maine! -- "Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world." Lily Tomlin
_______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive