English Confronting Modernity: Becoming Citizens of the World: Project-based Learning: Fundraising

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Project-based Learning: Fundraising

Students raised $850 for My Melody School

in Chimaltenango, Guatemala!

Our shopping cart...preparing for the concession stand at the 3 on 3 basketball fund raiser, December 7, 2012.

The theme students deduced from their work with Tree Girl and doing inquiry into the modern Maya was how education, or how knowledge about your world, provides one access to ideas that can potentially change lives. When students learned that only 1% of Guatemalans go to college, they realized that a college education is not available to everyone, much like it is in the U.S. However, when students discovered that nearly 70% of elementary aged kids don't actually finish elementary school, they were really confused. Why don't kids finish even the early grades? Their research uncovered how the infrastructure for education is virtually non-existent. For example, the roads to not go up and through the Highlands, where most indigenous Maya live. And if no roads are there, then no schools are there, and then access to schools elsewhere is also non-existent without transportation.

Thus, students at my school wanted to do something, and I thought that we could use reading and writing to do so. We decided to work with My Melody School in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. We made contact with the principal and learned about their good work to provide nutrition, healthcare, clothing and bilingual education (Spanish and their indigenous Kachikel). We read about fund raisers, wrote proposals, talked through what was possible and what might also bring our own school community closer. Then, students wrote flyers considering purpose, audience and writer (rhetorical triangle), and finally, we met to develop procedures for the different events. Here is what they came up with:

1. a 3 on 3 basketball tournament -- Here, we had to learn the language of the game to develop posters for rule and brackets (take possession at the top of the key; check the ball on every possession; make it, take it; call your own fouls); we had to do presentations on the announcements thinking of our audience and our purpose to talk about the event and our mission for My Melody; students.and approached people to "sell" the event and then worked the events coming in at lunch to talk through their role. One student asked me if he could bring a friend whom I did not know. I agreed and said that I would like to meet this student. During lunch, my student brought is friend and introduced me formally. The student said how proud he was to be a part of the event. I heard basketball players talking in the hallway about how it is just a good cause. Teachers got a team together to compete, too.

2. dodgeball tournament -- December 20th. Eight teams of five signed up for $20 each to participate in a dodgeball tournament. It was great fun to see so many players and fans. Some teachers sponsored their homerooms for the event. At half-time, the poms squad came out to perform a dance, and then it was back to the battle. We sold homemade cookies, pop, chips, and water to fans and players. For an hour and a half, this group of students played with joy and lots of aggression (check out the clip) -- a much needed event when winter break is just a day away.

3. Xbox FIFA tournament -- Today was the XBox, FIFA tournament. 12 kids signed up to play a single-elimination bracket for $5 each. The students, whose idea it was, brought in his Xbox and the game, and we set up the game on the overhead projector and big screen. Lights turned down and volume turned up, kids battled it out in 4 minute halves (8 minute games). I brought in laptops so kids could play computer games on the side, but most preferred to watch the action and cheer each other on. We had concessions - -pop, chips, waters, and cookies -- for $1 each, and some kids even gave a $2 donation to watch the tournament. It was beautiful.

4. Holiday gram sale at lunch -- This tactic sparked a lot of interest from students on both sides of this table. We sold "holiday grams" during lunch for nearly a week; a holiday gram is a card with candy that a student can buy and have delivered to a friend or teacher. The fund raising group created three holiday cards from which "givers" selected and then offered a candy bag or candy bar for sale. It was great to see and listen to the orders because students talked about to whom they wanted to wish a great holiday break or just to send a secret note of admiration. Again, students reached deep into their pockets to send a sweet to a friend for the "Mayan kids." After taking all the orders, I went to Walmart to get all the "goods" for the after school workshop where we filled and delivered all the orders. Students, some quite unexpected, showed up after school ready to write "to and from" cards and assemble the candy bags while listening to some holiday tunes. On the day of the delivery, I saw some students with their candy bags and asked how it felt to get this surprise, and one said it felt great "to know someone was thinking about me."

To make a donation, go to the My Melody giving page: http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=21530.

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Re-imagining the English Classroom

This unit is an example of what English teachers can do to explore global issues of social justice through reading and writing. This is specifically designed using eighth grade Common Core Standards, but the units are appropriate for middle through high school students. The essential question that began this blog is this: How have the Maya responded to signs of change, and what can the Maya teach us about tradition, cooperation, and democracy? However, it expanded to other units that also seek to find the lessons of modernity -- or the belief that knowledge, the economy, technology and even our selves are capable of never-ending improvement. That said, our work is to uncover the darker side of such progress, which is also complex and shows how we are implicated in the lives of people all over the world. The format of these units is mostly inquiry-based, but we hold onto the core of our discipline, which is narrative. History is a narrative just as stories are, so we need to see any story as having gaps that prompt questions and further inquiry.

For the Maya unit, students will learn about cooperation through inquiry by beginning with a central text, developing comprehension and literary analysis skills while reading the central text, and then filling in the narrative gaps with additional inquiry researching a variety of genres. The summative assessment will enact this principle by presenting their research through multiple genres and then sharing their findings in a oral presentation and gallery walk. I try variations of this with each unit.

1. Thus, the first learning goal is to understand that knowledge is constructed by and through multiple sources. For this reason, we will do fishbowl and socratic seminars throughout the 3 weeks . The summative writing and speaking assessment is a multigenre project (see Romano’s Blending Genre, Altering Style or many websites) that synthesizes various sources to answer our essential question using multiple genres. Students are free to select from a variety of topics.

2. The second goal is to consider what different genres do to help us understand Maya experiences; thus, students will be able to examine the structure, authorial language, and authenticity of historical fiction and testimonio and to analyze what impact each has on the reader’s experience.In reading various texts, students will practice comprehension skills, identify and analyze literary devices, and trace the theme of cooperation. The summative reading assessment is a written assessment about figurative language, vocabulary in context, dialogue, and genre.

3.The third goal is to enact inclusivity, participation and critical engagement -- pillars of thick democracy. The texts in this unit captures the resilience of people and the value of cooperation. By focusing on Maya genocide of the early 1980s and exploring their culture, American students can learn the true meaning of cooperation and gain a greater sense of democratic living while also celebrating the resilience of a people. We will see how the Maya maintain their cultural foundation while making modern adaptation.

The novel, Tree Girl, is the central text, so the study guide here follows this book chapter by chapter indicating places for additional inquiry. Students will do inquiry during workshop time and keep notes in their research journals. The testimonio of I, Rigoberta Menchu, and numerous documentary and other media resources capture the social structures that created oppression in Guatemala and the mechanisms people used to resist and maintain traditions such as coops for farming and weaving and integrating Catholicism with indigenous religion. The two books are also a source of comparison as we think about how we learn about history.

As we see in Grandin's book, "Repression severed alliances between reforming elites and popular classes, disaggregated powerful collective movements into individual survival strategies, extracted leaders from their communities, and redefined the relationship between human beings and society" (196). However, individuals, especially activists like Rigoberta Menchu, while extracted did not remain isolated. Out of such manifestations grew a new way of thinking that resisted oppression –granito de arena. This metaphor for cooperation is a powerful message for any democratic society and is particularly relevant for developing classroom ethos. Guatemala advanced democracy not through autonomy or isolated freedom but rather a "collective action laid bare the social foundations of self" (181). This, I think, is what is worth knowing and teaching in our schools; this notion of democracy is worth contemplating, and so this unit attempts to explore these notions by using stories as points of access for these young thinkers.

Ganito de arena – a humble phrase that says “ I alone can’t change things. But I can HELP to change things." It’s a collective concept of change! It signifies a process that change can take many forms. It comes through struggle that unites collective rights and individual rights. What I give is only a tiny contribution (as with all the people we will meet in this unit). There are no heroes, but when the hand of destiny touches you, you have to act – you don’t have a choice.