Final Project

The book I've chosen to work with for this assignment is Gary Soto's Jesse. The grade level would likely be 9th or 10th.

Overview:
For this unit, I would like to focus on the concept of overcoming adversity through hard work and determination. Jesse tells the story or a seventeen year old boy named Jesse who drops out of high school to persue art at the local community college while doing his best to make ends meet. Both he and his brother Abel confront the reality of being so poor that they must go to excessive lengths such as digging through garbage in the alley to find things to sell. The end of the novel seems depressing at the end as it leaves Jesse living in his landlady's garage with his brother gone in the draft. However, the reader gets a sense that Jesse will find himself back at school and ready to go next semester.

Jesse shows incredible determination in this story of second generation immigrants and the challenges that they face. This is a good lesson for students to see and expound upon; that if you are willing to work for your goals, you can get through adversity. Seeing that seemingly bleak circumstances can be overcome is a crucial lesson. That being said, I would like this lesson to focus on hard work and dedication.

Prior to our reading of the novel, I would like the students to read up on Gary Soto. There is a brief exerpt on his life as a poet and writer that goes into his motivations at www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral/jsp?id=1353_type=book_typeId=2778 . After reading this information, I would like students to take time to write in their journals about how Soto's experiences might have an impact on his writing and try to predict some of the themes in the book we are about to read. After the book, I would like to revisit this information and ask the students how his personal history gives merit to his literary works.

The first step would be having the students identify the challenges at hand in the book. I would have the class work in groups to identify what problems Jesse runs into in the book (they can use their chapter notes) and then identify which of these problems are related to cultural issues and which seem to just be unfortunate luck.

I would like to have quizzes throughout the reading of this text that focus on the cultural concepts being brought up. These would likely include one or two short essay questions a piece to get the students thinking about the book critically. Following the quizzes, we would have in class discussion in both group settings and then as a whole class. While in groups, they should brain storm concepts that they find to be important such as prevalent themes and cultural aspects. Then, as a whole class, we will discuss these issues and the impact that it has on the characters and the book as a whole. On occasion, passages from House on Mango Street could be brought in to suppliment certain cultual values such as identity and seeking love.

For the final project, I would like the students to write a paper about a goal that they had to work hard for. Jesse works very hard to stay in school, but also to assert his independance as a strong young Hispanic American. So in the paper, I would like students to tell me in detail what an aspiration is that they have worked hard for or something that they would work hard to obtain or accomplish. They should show me through their writing how their culture would play a part in their efforts. Would it hinder or help? In what ways? What sacrifices might you have to make? These should all be effectively covered in the paper.

Rubric -

Paper discusses the student's goal or aspiration in depth -30 points

Paper details how one's personal identity comes into play when aspiring for their goal -30 points

Paper answers all questions ask, including sacrifices made -30 points

Grammar and spelling -10 points

Lesson Plan: Stimulating Ideas

Objective: Students will be able to identify several ideas for aspirations that they can write about and will have supporting material for each idea.

Materials needed: projector

Launch: 10 minutes

Students will write in their journals about what is most important to them. What are the things that they truly value in life, specifically focusing on long term goals. This prompt will be on the projector for students as they come into the class. After writing, we will briefly share a few ideas.

Instruction: 35 minutes

Students will get out a piece of paper and brain storm at least one long term goal that they have or have had and write about why it was important to them. Then they will need to write briefly (bullet points are fine) what it took to reach this goal or what it might take.

Once students have finished, they will find a partner and share their thoughts, helping each other to build and add to the list. Following this sharing, the students will collaborate in coming up with at least two more long term goals, following the same process as before, but now with a partner to aide them.

Closer: 5 minutes

Briefly discuss some ideas as a whole class and give a little bit of feedback to peers.

Homework: Finish your list of three possibilities if you didn't in class.

Heritage

I come from a heritage that I did not originally know existed when I was young. What I mean to say by this is that, as a boy, I did not realize that I cam from a specific culture because I come from a town where most people had similar ethnicity, basic beliefs, and economic status. Some were obviously more well off economically than others as in the case in all communities in the world. I guess I just never saw the differences among us that would cause me to think that I came from a culture or heritage that was different than that of others.

Not until late in my High School years did I note that the things I believe in and where I come from (heritage, not location) was shaping me into someone very different from others around me. This is something drastically different from a lot of Hispanic students and indeed all minorities and even many white Americans. We all have different backgrounds that shape us and craft who we are today and who we will be in the future. These defining features are in correlation with out cultural backgrounds and having pride or disgust in that background will stick with a person throughout their entire life.

In order to move forward, you must first fully understand where it is that you come from in this world; this is a concept that I believe strongly in. Knowing your heritage can help you to see where your support lines lay. I know that a part of my heritage is faith -- not faith in a religious sense, but rather a faith in each other as a family. We know that family will support you in your endeavors and despite your transgressions, you are still connected and share a common love.

Family is a deeply rooted aspect of my culture. As I am very close to mine, so, too, are many Hispanic students as it is a defining attribute of Hispanic heritage. This connection is something that I could easily use to create bonds to my Hispanic students and find common ground.

Discussion Panel

On Tuesday, we had a discussion panel... well it was meant to be a panel, but turned out to just be a guest speaker.

Our speaker was a great resource for exploring new ideas to deal with Hispanic students. As an intern teacher at the bilingual school, El Sol, he has up to date knowledge on strategies to help engage students who would otherwise check out based on their lack of language knowledge.

He suggested that we check out SIOP to help us find strategies to get through to ESL students. I really liked the idea of teaching with a bilingual approach that allows all students to be encompassed in something new that fosters a higher level of application of knowledge. I will need to investigate this further in order to implement SIOP strategies that would benefit any of my students.

Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers

This was a great article that focused a lot the importance of preparing, as a teacher, to cover multi-cultural texts.

We've spoken in class about how important it is to condition our students to be educated citizens of the world. This means that we need to expose them to many different cultural contexts and perspectives. This will give them a better look at how to cope with and respectfully embrace other points of view.

The article discusses how challenging it can be for new teachers to discuss multicultural material when they themselves are not yet familiar with it. I believe that this is very important as we have learned a lot about different contexts and how to teach them, but I still honestly believe that we need more first hand experience.

This is something I would like to find out for myself through trial and error whilst hoping for the best.

House on Mango Street

As an English teacher, I feel that it's always important to expand your gamut of texts and styles of texts. House on Mango Street, with its lazy poems and strange way of bopping around to construct a story was new and intriguing to me. Aside from just the format of the book, I feel that it gave insight into a bevy of important themes that students would be well off to be informed about.

Defining oneself is a very important concept for a majority of teens. This is seen in HoMS when Esperanza contemplates how to make herself stand out from her family and culture so as not to be caught up in it. She gestures about changing her name. This is likely a way to get away from her culture and separate herself. She also tries to define herself as both a woman and an artist. Throughout the book, she tries to figure out who she is through her poetry and female role models. In the end, she realizes that it is better to embrace her culture and her family because they will support her. She sees that her writing will take her away from Mango Street and the bad aspects but that she will always have a place in the community. This relates to an issue with students and showing them that you don't have to abandon where you come from to define who you are. It also shows that if you work hard to foster your talents, you can rise in life and be the person you desire to be.

Additionally, there is a big issue presented in this book dealing with race. Several times it is noted that people who don't speak English are neglected or mistreated. This is a huge issue with the young man who is struck by a car and dies waiting for help from doctors who refuse to come help him. This is a blatant recognition that not speaking English in America makes you a second-class citizen. This is a huge deal as it could be highly relatable to ESL students and what they might be going through. It becomes apparent that not knowing how to connect with students with these concerns and then ignoring them can lead to serious problems with long lasting repercussions that we, as responsible teachers, must strive to prevent.

The idea of identifying one's heritage is obviously important to debriefing this book. Knowing where you come from is essential to moving forward. Seeing where support can be found and what traditions your culture celebrates can help shape a person. The tricky part to this dance is in acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of a heritage and then encouraging the indoctrination of the good aspects while recognizing that it is possible to rise above the negative ones. This holds true to all heritages and cultures, not just Hispanic heritage or even minorities. Showing students that they can benefit from their background but not be held down by it is an extremely useful topic to cover and one that would most likely be the focus if I personally used this book for a unit.

Final Project book

Well, I originally started with a book called Borderlands. It tells the story of an immigrant family dealing with issues such as language and culture shock when coming across the border. This book is good, but I'm not sure I'd want to teach it in my class due to the fact that I, myself, sometimes have a hard time understanding what's happening in the book.

In light of this, I chose to go with a very popular book, Jesse, by Gary Soto. To be honest, I don't know much about the book aside from the stray comments that it's well written and that it's easy to relate to teens. So I'm interested to get into it and I'll be ready to report more when I read up!

Arturo's flight

Arturo's story is one that is very common and will be seen in the classroom for decades to come. It is a story of isolation and misplaced frustration.

As Johann, Arturo's guide and protector is some small way, I would feel the need to convey several things to the young man to attempt to reassure him. First of all, do not be discouraged by people who do not appreciate you. Just because someone else doesn't value what you're doing, doesn't mean that it is of no value. Being a poet doesn't make you a homosexual or a loser, it makes you artistic and often linguistically advanced.

Don't be afraid to follow what you're passionate about and when people confront you, just remember that their opinions are just that: opinions. They only have power over you if you let them.

Being frustrated about people who are ignorant towards what you are passionate about is nearly unavoidable. However, changing your appearance and getting fired from your job because you don't want to listen to anyone is not a good solution. It is important to productively take care of your frustrations in a manner that is beneficial to you and those who are important to you.