In English class today, I looked over to see a student beating his head against his textbook.
I asked, "Hey, so, Billy, are you ok?"
"Uh huh."
"Are you bored?"
"Yeah. Really bored."
"You're good at English, though. I read your essay and it was great. Do you like it?"
"Yeah. I almost joined AP, but didn't. It's just this class. It's boring."
"Well, I'll think about it and see if I can come up with ways to make this stuff more interesting."
The next time I'll be in class, we're going over Of Plymouth Blah Blah and a slave narrative of the ship voyage. Both deal with racism, cultural misunderstanding, and perseverance. Ideas?
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8 comments:
dress as ghetto as you can
and the first thing you say when you walk into class, in your loudest voice, should be
"what up my niggas!?!?!?!"
that should get some conversation going.
Time and again I ask myself, whence comes Andrew's bevy of fantastic ideas?
Hahaha, Matt!
I would mayheps ask for a short reflective paragraph on one's own experience of racism or culteral misunderstanding? I think they'd just rol their eyes at a "perseverance" response, but maybe if you get him righteously indignant he won't be so bored.
Maybe.
OR...you could just turn them all into your slaves and go on a ship voyage...
p.s. I'm picturing Mary dressed as ghetto as she can saying in a loud voice "what up my niggas?!?!?"
...and it's not working....
Or, what about asking him (and/or the class in general) to write down the stuff they'd like to do with the reading material?
that's the awsome part bianca, just the thought of it, would spark enough discussion.
And Matt you know whence my ideas come, you spent a summer in an office with me where I made popsicle stick figures and then later stomped on them to make a point about the book of Job.
I had a brainstorm! You could "find" a letter in the hallway that says something like "Dear Counselor, The kids at this school are so prejudiced. They all judge me by the way I look, no one understands me, blah blah blah." (Don't worry, a large part of teaching is lying to children :)) Then have the kids write back to that person, or give them each a role (like the counselor, principal, teachers, etc.) to give the kid advice, etc. then maybe they could do the same activity after they read the text and are enlightened about prejudice and misconceptions and such.
So, there's my brainstorm. :)
Becky
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