Writing letters is said to be "a dying art." With that in mind, look at these letters with a critical lens and think about the last time you wrote or received a letter. Has email, text messaging and instant messaging replaced carefully penned and crafted letter? Please take this opportunity to write letters to Barack Obama using text speak or email format. What would you write to the President of the United States about? This is a reflective assignment.
The following are lists of response choices: (you need to post once, and read at-least two peer responses and comment refering to their post) (you must hand in a hand written response if you are not permitted to post)
Choose one!
1. You may rewrite the letter to Barack Obama (from Alice Walker) demonstrating your proficiency and skill with text speak or LOL language.
2. You may respond to the letter from Alice Walker, to Barack Obama and take a stance against her advice and the transition in government.
3. You may compare and contrast the James Baldwin Letter and the Alice Walker letter looking to demonstrate differences in style and purpose.
4. You may write a letter to Mr. Wind about your experience to his teaching style and his transition from an eleventh grade English Classroom in Hamburg to a seventh grade English Classroom at Grover Cleveland International School in Buffalo. It should take the shape of the Alice Walker letter and include literary elements (repetition, theme, metaphor, etc...).
The following are the links to items we have read or watched in class.
• Alice Walker "Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama" (online print )
• James Baldwin ”My Dungeon Shook" (p. 792)
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14 comments:
Mr. Wind,
I personally think that the social justice unit that you have introduced to our period five English class was beneficial in many ways. I think that discussing important people in our past history such as MLK and Malcolm X were beneficial in the sense that we were able to be enlightened on each of these important historical figures views on civil rights. I also think that this made the class more vocal and able to express their opinions on these topics. I also like the fact that you introduced us to people such as Nikki Giovanni who expressed her opinions and feelings on subjects such as civil rights through poetry. Though I think your methods of teaching social justice were excellent, there are some things I advise you do not do in the future especially with your seventh graders at Grover Cleveland Middle School. First and for most I do not suggest doing this whole blog idea. In our fifth period, there seemed to be so much confusion with the posts and what to post when. I would suggest not doing that with the seventh graders.Secondly, I think that the blog was not very fair to kids who do not own a computer let alone have time to have access to one. One thing that I also noticed through out our social justice unit that sometimes I felt like I was in history class. Especially when doing this poster project that you assigned for us. I think it was a great idea to have a myspace or facebook page lay out. I feel that the variety in our class opened the opportunity to new and better ways of doing projects. Though I felt like i was in U.S. history sometimes. So I'm not saying you have to take advice from a sixteen year old high school student, I am just giving you some future advice. I think that you have made a great impact on our class. I wish you the best of luck with your teaching experiences in the future!!
Marisa,
I feel as though you are correct in thinking that this Social Justice Unit has been like a U.S. History or Social Studies class. We have been studying non-fiction forms of literature, most of which relate to American Literature which is the title of English 11. I hope that you still gained some insight from this unit. I would have loved to read a YA Novel with our class but without 110 copies there was really no way to do that successfully. Great luck to you,
Thankfully,
Mr. Wind
Dear Mr. Wind,
Well to start off I suppose thanking you for the last few weeks of teaching us. I feel like our class has been difficult by not understanding like any project and other things. [Not everyone ofcourse.]
Anyway's let's get to the "good stuff". Some student teachers seem to be extremely nervous. Ofcourse you probably were in the beginning, but you played it off pretty well. I also like how you put so much technology into your lession. I feel that more teachers need to get involved in that. For your future class I believe you should definitely make a video quilt and have them think about what wisdom is to them. That was my favorite part of your whole time here. It is interesting to see your different peers' opinion. Another nice part about the class was home much discussion we had. That is an important part of any class I believe. [Eventhough, I want to be a math teacher and that may be a little bit more difficult.] Overall, the "good stuff" was pretty good.
Mr. Wind, eventhough you were a nice guy and you had some good ideas for material to teach there is always room to do better. The most annoying part about you through this whole experience is how often you would tell the class to be quite. It honeslty was too much. I understand a teacher telling kids to stop talking when they are taking a tesr, when someone else is talking, if you are teaching a lession, or even if we are writing a paper, but if we are drawing a picture of what we imagen a quote to be or something I do not see the problem with talking quitely. Most students usually ask their partners questions if they do not understand. Mr. Wind you need to understand that there is usually over 20 kids and it will just be you. You are going to want kids to ask their partner for a clarification. Unless ofcourse if it get too loud, then you should tell them to be quiter. Anyways, my least favorite project you have assigned was the Facebook/Myspace project. Honestly I feel like it is was too much and for the topic I do not feel it goes well with it. I would rather write a paper or do a less involved project. I am the kind of person that tends to try to learn something rather then takes the easy way out, and I feel like I am way over my head.
I know complaining does not go anywhere so here are my suggestions to make you the best english teacher you can be. [Then maybe people will pay you a thousand dollars to speak at their graducation.] Now with the video quilt. DO NOT let every kid pick the same quote. Have your students challenge themslves and make up their own line about wisdom. [Honestly, not that hard.] It will just make the whole video more interesting. I would of gave a little bit more time for that unit too since then I think you would of got more involved essays. Next thing, DO NOT allow kids to hand in things so late. If you allow them to do this then they are going to take advantage of you. Let's be honest. To get the students to understand the blogs a little better, you should take them to the computer lap for the first one and go through the steps with them. Maybe if they see you do one with them it would be clearer. Plus they can ask questions as they are going through it. My last suggestion is do not have the kids take out a new piece of paper every day to write a sentence on it that they will never look at again. Waste of trees. Instead, have them take out a scap paper, or use the same paper all week.
Good luck with the seventh graders. Seventh graders are very emotional and mean. I remeber seventh grade being the WORST year of school ever. Try to be understanding with them.
Best of Wishes!
-Paige Hurley
Paige,
I think you are so right about needing to go to the computer lab on day one to have each student sign up for the blog and to walk through the expectations. I will keep that in mind for my next blog assignment.
About the handing things in late. I did not want to accept things late and I don't think that they should be allowed to take advantage of the system. However, students should be allowed to earn less than a zero. I do not want to see any of my students fail. I believe that it is my job not to quit on a student as much as it is a students job not to quit on themselves. It is my job to inspire, motivate, and engage students. If studnents are not inspired to do the work, or just don't do it, part of the blame should be on me. They simply decided not to do it! Thank you for your genuine advice.
--Mr. Wind
Mr. Wind
I had a very fun time in your class. I really enjoyed the facebook/myspace project, mainly because I love doing projects. It shows how much people care about school. One downfall about you teaching was the first few few (1 to 2) days you did a lot "by the book" and as you got more comfortable you loosened up that is when the class got fun. I'm on the fence about the blogs, I think it was cool to see everyone's point of view even if they didn't talk during class. I think it really depends on the class you teach the way they feel, in our class wasn't paying as much attention as we should have been. Another thing I enjoyed about your class was that we got to express the way we felt and not the way someone wanted us to feel about a topic. I know that student teachers have a bad rep. but I think you finally changed that bad rep. Good luck with your next class!
~Maggie
I think that Paige has great points about taking us to the computer lab. But I also disagree about how she said that you said to "be quiet" after teaching 3 classes before ours and we are being extremly obnoxious I can see where you come from. And after saying what to do like 30 times I understand completly. But I do also agree about the video quilt that Paige talked about having everyone pretty much saying the same thing is quite boring.
Mr Wind,
History is my least favorite class and that is probably why i wasn't a huge fan of the social justice unit you have taught. On the other hand i really enjoyed your way of teaching, you really made us think things through deeply rather than just writing a simple essay. I enjoyed writing the reflections about myself, i think it even made me realize things about me that i have never really thought about before. Though if i read those reflections i wrote right now i would probably have no idea what i was talking about, but i think that why i enjoyed it. I like the discussions we have had in class, i think it really made everyone think about certain issues from different perspectives. And the wisdom reflection quilt video...at first i really disliked the idea of this haha but after it was all put together and we watched it in class i realized how interesting it really was. I liked how everyone related wisdom to their own personal lives, it was cool to hear the multiple perspectives.
I see that some people have said that "everyone said the same thing" in the video quilt and..yes, i agree that the first section of the quilt was kind of pointless..it just made those people sound like they were trying to come across as if they knew what they were talking about..though they probably really had no idea of what that quote even meant..let alone what it meant to the person that wrote it and related it to their personal life. I think you should have discussions and reflective assignments for your next students. Good luck!
Dear Mr Wind,
I personally believe that the way you taught the social justice unit was excellent. I believe it truly got our class thinking more about what has happened and is going on. You allowed us to express our ideas more freely than in any other class and made our ideas seem equal to one another. I had a lot of fun in class because you made us all speak up and express our ideas instead of always being quite and not being allowed to talk. Things as simple as them poems that you had us read and listen to brought a different understanding of how things are especially that teacher poem. How that poet said teachers got students thinking just like you did. Even though at first you seemed very nervous, you were always friendly and that probably impacted the most on how we all viewed you. This blog idea no offense is a pain in the butt in my opinion but like its not a bad idea and like you said before if we started doing this in the beginning of the year we wouldn't mind it as much. I also agree on how you said we're allowed an extension on something because sometimes things may come up or not always able to do them. I think that your a great teacher and is was a pleasure having you teach us. Good luck at your next school. By the way sorry i turned your one lesson on the one poem about that one girl who was not rich but still happy upside down. Good luck.
I agree with what Marisa says on how the blogs were very confusing because half of our class wouldn't shut up when you were trying to explain it. I also believe you should have just gotten to the point with the blogs. Like create 1 post about this and comment 2 others posts by then or its late and will have points off. And then explain how to get to the site. So its like just get to the point when your assigning things.
Mr Wind,
Im not a big fan of english class but the social justice unit I liked a lot. Not many things intrest me and what you taught us achually did. It made me go home after school and go online and look more into what you taught us that day. There were a lot of assignments but they kept me thinking which is what I really enjoy.They were assignments I could releate to in some way so they also kept me wanting to write or do more then what was asked. I also liked giving you my feedback and hearing what other people had to say about certain touchy subjects instead of just listening to a teacher for 40 minutes.At first I just thought you were going to be this student teacher who just gave lots of work and would be boring. I was proven wrong.
Your ways of teaching were very very good. I enjoyed them and Im a very picky person when it comes to how I learn or how I am being taught.I can already tell you will do a wonderfull job at your new school.
Good luck and make sure to keep us posted.
by the way, this is my third account. I keep forgetting my password haha.
Q: You may write a letter to Mr. Wind about your experience to his teaching style and his transition from an eleventh grade English Classroom in Hamburg to a seventh grade English Classroom at Grover Cleveland International School in Buffalo. It should take the shape of the Alice Walker letter and include literary elements
A: I feel as if you did a wonderful job teaching as a student teacher. You’re a pretty laid back guy, but you can’t have these kids take advantage of you. I understand handing in late work, but once they find out that you will let them hand it in whenever past the due date, they will take advantage of that. Maybe the whole handing stuff in late thing should be acknowledged by the students and now taken advantage of. I think that for future reference that you shouldn’t take late work. You should have a designated date for the assignment or assignments to be dude. Also to reflect on Paige Hurley’s post, I agree with the whole computer lab thing maybe once out of the week we should take a trip down there to do these. It would be a good idea, for students that don’t like to do things like this, so then maybe you will have a higher expectation rate to receive there response to this, and not have it done at the last minute like me ha-ha or ever at all. I liked the project when you had us pick a quote, and then we had to draw a picture that reflected the quote into an image. So maybe people would have a better understanding of what the quote meant, or maybe it’s because I am just an artsy type of person.
I personally think that the social justice unit was a different and cool change up from regular english class. It was kind of like a history class but we wrote about ourselves a lot and that made is more linked to english. I like the way you taught the unit because you were very laid back about it and just wanted people to say what they really thought. I liked the poster project because it was fun and i can see how you were trying to relate to kids with the whole myspace thing. I also liked the essays because they were simple in that we just wrote about ourselves and out thoughts on certain subjects.I don't really like the idea of blogging because I think that it is to much to ask for kids who don;t like to blog or don't have computers. I like the idea that paige had about going to the computer lab though because that is a good way to get every to participate. Also I agree with Zak when he says that you shouldn't let people hand stuff in late because people do take advantage of that...especially on a student teacher. Altogether your time here teaching us was a fun experience and I thought you did a very good job, because I learned a lot. I hope you come back to visit and good luck at your new teaching job.
Thank you all for your comments, insight, recomendations, and criticisms. I will reflect upon your words for weeks, months, and years to come. Be well...
-Mr. Wind
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