TEACHER COMMENTARY & REFLECTION

One of the students reflects on his essay "Homeless".
Click on image to see QuickTime® video.

Rationael and discussion of approach: As the theme of this unit is Human rights, the essential questions (racism, discrimination, rights of the child, women rights, and human rights) were posed. Most of my students believed themselves to be survivors of human rights violations.

The students that I teach are mainly second language, ninth graders who demonstrate underdeveloped English speaking, reading comprehension, and writing skills, and many of them are new immigrants to the United States. Both the second language taught claim that they have experienced unfair treatment based on racial differences. However, they were not able to define the term racism or discrimination, and they were unclear about the notion of human rights. In each chapter of House on Mango Street, the narrator presents interesting characters and numerous Human Rights violations that were not addressed in the mind of the book’s main character.

The experiences of the (main character) young girl often mirrored the experiences of my young students. Therefore, many of chapters in House on Mango Street are used to address the diversity among my students while creating an atmosphere where they can identify and grapple with Human Rights issues that impact their learning experiences. The Human Rights approach to learning not only facilitates learning experiences that promote autonomy, interaction, and choice, but also engage students in problem solving, and critical thinking, and promotes self-directed, and reflective learning for all students.

WHAT WORKED?

• Oral reading for comprehension (oral reading & discussion) offered the students an opportunity to review and discuss the readings.
• Peer sharing provided an opportunity for the students to share feelings, experiences in common, and an opportunity to change their attitude about their experiences.
• Completion of the worksheets and the essay writing assignments were tools used to provide the teacher and student with feed back for improving the student’s reading comprehension, and writing skills.
• The essay writing, editing and revisions not only improved the student’s writing skills but also assisted in developing the student’s vocabulary skills.
• The typed autobiographical essay, including computer generated clip art, and essay formatting was most enjoyable for the students because they incorporated their own individual formatting style.

• Silent sustained in-class reading, peer editing, and worksheet completion as homework was challenging for students, perhaps because these activities are not as entertaining as read aloud, web search, or oral discussion activities.

• Present the some of the reading comprehension strategies using power point illustrations?
• Develop the commentary and reflection worksheets by incorporating some Inspiration technology strategies that format the worksheets in ways that are intriguing and interesting.
• Introduce computer generated clip art and graphics early in the Unit for maintaining student interest, and for providing a learning entertainment piece that encourages the student to stay with the lesson.