12.7: Do -- End of the school year

Sometimes it's hard to figure out things for students to do at the end of the school year. We've read two books this quarter, and I worked very hard to create questions and discussion topics so that people could understand what concepts I wanted them to get, and I was really kind of proud of the whole thing.

Then, once everything was done, one honest student tells me, "Yeah, I didn't read anything. I just guessed through the questions on the test."

It really makes me sad, because I do have a lot of important information for these students to understand before they move on to 10th grade. There is a lot that they need to do.

My co-teacher and I have designed an essay for the students to write over these next two weeks. It involves two short essays about a culture that the students feel that they are a part of and then one brochure about another comparable but different culture.

I made two sample essays about being from Cleveland, and then my co-teacher and I worked on the brochure, which is about being from Los Angeles.

We had to find three pieces of cultural artifacts about or from Los Angeles. That was easy -- we chose Clueless, California Love, by Tupac, and a poem from Charles Bukowski. Then we needed to come up with 15-20 facts about Los Angeles. We looked through websites to find the absolute best information. I also drew on some facts I knew from my frequent LA trips a few years ago -- the traffic is AWFUL, the mountains and oceans touch, and Mexican food is better there.

I really hope my students spend some time researching and opening their little rich kid minds a bit.

NGS and I never have to write about DO again.