EDUC 342 - Yolanda Stewart
Abstract:
Throughout the quarter seventeen middle level students from Success Works Academy will take pictures of events, people and places in their own lives that remind them of the text Sharon Draper text Forged by Fire and create a personalized scrapbook. Students will be encouraged to write about the picture and discuss its relation to the text. At times, students will be prompted by activities to help them "think visually" about specific chapters or events as a means to help them recognize their personal strength.
Concurrently, Otterbein middle level, pre-service teachers will read the Sharon Draper text Forged by Fire and complete a novel study as part of their course requirement for EDUC 342: Language Arts Methods. They will discuss the major themes associated with the text and different strategies to use this text in middle level settings. Otterbein students will meet with middle level students from SWA, who have documented behavior issues and difficulty performing in a regular school environment. Otterbein students will provide editing assistance by coaching them through the writing process. They will work one on one to provide the necessary emotional support for staying on task and developing a final product that can be shared with members of the surrounding community.
The students (Otterbein and SWA), teachers (2 from SWA) and volunteer from Scrapbook Groupies will work together to prepare a draft layout for their words and pictures.
As a culminating activity, we will invite award-winning author Sharon Draper as our guest speaker to facilitate a school visit at Arts IMPACT Middle School (175 students served from partner schools: Beery MS, Johnson Park MS, Arts IMPACT MS, Champion MS) reading workshop, scrapbook sharing and professional development workshop for Otterbein's pre-service candidates. The scrapbook sharing will be conducted by the 6th and 7th grader participants in a mini-exhibit at Success Works Academy for the students, staff, administration, author,
pre-service teachers and other invited guests from the community.
Evaluation
Seventeen middle level students from Success Works Academy took pictures of events, people and places in their own lives that remind them of the text Sharon Draper text Forged by Fire and created a personalized scrapbook. Students wrote about the picture and discuss its relation to the text and their personal lives. Their last page focused on efforts they could do to keep "forging" in light of the changes they plan to make in their worlds.
Otterbein students met with middle level students from SWA, who have documented behavior issues and difficulty performing in a regular school environment. Otterbein students provided editing assistance by coaching them through the writing process. They worked one- on-one to provide the necessary emotional support for staying on task and developing a final product that can be shared with members of the surrounding community. Their Final Demonstration of Student Learning PowerPoint details more of their thoughts about this experience.
As a culminating activity, author Sharon Draper facilitated a reading workshop. At the end, the scrapbook sharing was conducted by the 6th and 7th grade participants in a mini-exhibit at Success Works Academy for the students, staff, administration, author, pre-service teachers and other invited guests from the community. The other students were inspired by what they saw and committed to reading several of her texts over the summer. A few members of the staff made purchases for these students to do so. The administrator also mentioned forming a reading club for mothers and daughters to use this text to help break some ground in discussing difficult or sensitive issues.
Several members at our partner schools asked how we could pool more of our resources for projects like this. They thought it was efficient and provided an incredible opportunity for students and staff.
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