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
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