Final Project

Objectives:

• For students to think about and examine different cultures and perspectives.
• For students to explore and talk about their own culture and experiences.
• To better understand Hispanic culture, and the issues that Hispanic adolescents face.

Lesson Plan Title: Examining the Adolescent Cultural Experience through the Hispanic Viewpoint

Book Being Used: Jesse By Gary Soto
Supplementary Texts Used: The House on Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros
Level of the Classroom: 7th-9th grades

Activities:
The main activities for this project will center around the books, Jesse and The House on Mango Street. Each text is very different; in the way that they are actually written, as well as in the stories and characters that they tell about. However, certain aspects of each text (the aspect of Hispanic culture, the adolescent experience, problems of poverty and abuse, the use of Spanish language) are very similar. Students will closely read and examine each text, exploring each individually, as well as comparing and contrasting the two.

Detailed Plan of How You Will Teach this Material:
Reading Questions:
While going through the chapters, students will be asked questions to provoke further thought about the reading. The material must be read in order to answer the questions, however their purpose is not to "catch" students who are not reading, but rather to get students to think more deeply about the literature and to fuel a more rich classroom discussion.

Here are some sample questions:
1. What problems do Jesse and Abel avoid by living on their own, rather than with their mother and stepfather? What problems do they introduce?

2. Why does Jesse think that it is a bad idea to get involved with Glenda?

3. What are some of the occupational hardships faced by farmworkers like Jesse and Abel?

4. Abel advises Jesse that "love comes with a price." What does Jesse experience that makes him believe this is true?

5. Having left high school a year early to attend community college, Jesse feels he is sort of in limbo. What happens that makes him believe that he belongs in college? What happens that makes him fell as though he was not yet ready to leave high school?

Character Poems

This is an exercise that I would ask students to do for each book. For both Jesse and The House on Mango Street students would make a poem about Jesse and Esperanza. Students may also choose to write a character poem about a different person from the novels.

Instuctions:

Step 1: Write quickly, without stopping, for several minutes about a character from the novel.

Step 2: From your prewriting, select responses to compose the following lines. Always feel free to add other ideas.

Line 1: Write the character's name, Line 2: Write 3 or 4 descriptive words about this character, Line 3: Make a comparison between the person and a non-human object. Use the words "like" or "as," Line 4: Identify something for which this persons stands out or is remembered for, Line 5: Tell why the person did what he/she did, Line 6: Refer to the person without using his/her real name.

Step 3: Read what you have written and make any nessecary changes for clarity. Poetry creates an image, not a complete picture. Share your poem with others.

A sample poem:

Jesse

Young, Determined, Thoughtful

Like the calm after the storm

Working toward a better life

Because he deserves more

A dreamer.



How the book is being presented:
Jesse is written in narrative form, told through the point of view of its title character. He is a seventeen year old boy, living in Fresno, California in the 1960's. Jesse and his 19 year old brother, Abel, recently moved away from home to get away from their drunk and abusive stepfather. They are both enrolled in Junior College, and do hard farm work on the weekends to make ends meet. The question surrounding this book: can Jesse overcome the odds and things working against him in his life to make it on his own?

The House on Mango Street is written much differently, is short vignettes, told by Esperanza, who is working to come the oppression present in her daily life on Mango Street in Chicago. Like Jesse, Esperanza wants more for herself and out of life. She does not want to settle like so many around her seem to be.

Themes I would pull from the two books are obviously the Hispanic cultural aspects present. Both books, Jesse in particular, use Spanish words and language in places that draw and speak directly to the culture. I do not want to portray the Hispanic culture of one that is poor and should be escaped, but rather as something that is to be celebrated. Although these two particular Hispanic adolescents are having a rough time, they are working to make themselves, and their culture, proud. Jesse fights for his people through rallies supporting the rights of farmworkers who are often taken advantage of as cheap labor. Esperanza writes about her experiences beautifully and creativly in a way that should be inspiring to all.

Assessment:

My heritage?

This prompt makes me think of a very similar prompt that I was given when I was a lot younger: What is your heritage? Where do you come from? Excited, I went home and asked my parents about my family heritage. Sadly, there was no definite answer. "I'm not really sure," she said, "I think that our we are mainly English, Irish, German, maybe a little Scottish."

OK..... not a very definite answer. So, sadly, I still do not know exactly where in the world that I am from. I do know where I am from pertaining to who I AM as a person, where I grew up, and what experiences I have had in my own life, so I suppose that that is the most important thing - I know who I am and where I am from - even if I am unsure of my ancestry.

In my English 4790 class, we did a "Where I'm from Poem" in the style of George Ella Lyon. I really loved this assignment, and think that it would fit in well with this type of unit. Writing creatively though poetry, students are able to think about their youth and where they are directly from. (Dirt roads, lake shores, cornbread, clothes pins, you name it - it's possible!)

This type of assignment connects to all students individually and allows them to connect to each other through sharing. Decorating these pieces and posting them on the classroom wall or something similar is a way of celebrating everyone's different heritage!

Another idea that I love is to write chapters about your own life in the style of Sandra Cisnero's House on Mango Street. These chapters would be a chance for the students to teach each other about their own lives and cultures. Each chapter could have a different subject, which the students would choose the title to. Each student could deal with very different subjects and themes through this project!

The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street was really enjoyable. I can really see it being taught in middle and even lower level high school English courses. In fact, I know that it is taught in a middle school within the Portage Public School District (according to my pre-internship mentor teacher).

When Teaching the Book....

As a project idea, I love love love the idea of students creating their own version of chapters. Students would write about their own ideas and cultures in the style of Sandra Cisneros. There could be a specific number of chapters for them to write, with a list of subjects that they could choose from. These subjects could be anything: birthdays, best days, bad days, someone special, a family member, the big game, first love, family traditions, free choice - anything! I would have students provide a book cover or even illustations to go along with their writing.

Another idea that I like is to illustrate different part of The House on Mango Street. Cisneros uses such descriptive and vivid imagery in her text. I think that it would be really cool to put those words into images through the students' point of view.

Just to Talk About the Book...

When thinking about this book, certain sections really stand out to me. "Alicia Who Sees Mice" really got to me. It might be the shortest (or close to) chapter in the book; but I think that it may also be one of the most powerful. The line, "Is afraid of nothing except four-legged fur. And fathers." really stands out to me and also leaves me with questions. Is Alicia abused? This could really create some great classroom discussion about opinions and how students read the text. The meaning is of course up to interpretation and there is no right answer. Personally, it seems that Alicia is being abused in one way or another by her father.

I found "Bums in the Attic" kind of funny. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of Esperanza's future house guests asking if there were mice in her attic, only for her to happily and matter-of-factly reply, that the noises they were hearing were bums. Here, she is talking about her dream house, and yet she wants bums in her attic so that they will have a place to sleep and stay. This says something about her character.

The reoccuring character, Sally really makes me sad. This poor girl never had a chance. A pretty girl, but always beaten and trying to get out - never shown that there was anything more in life for her. Unlike Esperanza, she does not seem to have the ache for more than what is available to her on Mango Street. She doesn't know any better.

"Red Clowns" was maybe the part that stood out to me the most. It was eerie and sad. It made me feel so bad for Esperanza and her innocence.

Panel Response

I really enjoyed our guest speaker. For me, it was extremely interesting to learn about a Dual Language school like El Sol. I am majoring in both in Spanish and English, so I really love to hear about cool places innovations such as those that are being done at El Sol. Prior to this unit, I had no idea that there even was such a place in Kalamazoo! This has really opened my eyes to what is possible in education and what is being done even in our own community!

The panel left me with questions of more ways to reach out to ESL students. Our speaker gave us some helpful strategies, however I think it is a shame that there is not a formal class required for education majors about dealing with ESL students. The need for bilingual educators, in the Spanish language in particular, continues to grow - shouldn't our curriculum for preservice teachers change as the trends in our schools' populations do?

Response to "Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers"

One of the quotes at the beginning of this article stood out to me, "Institutions ultilizing the isolated course approach have found that preservice teachers and professors deal with diversity only in that one singular context. In other courses, such as methods classes and foundation and development classes, topics in diversity are not systematically addressed.

I do NOT find this to be true at all of my education and experiences here at Western. It could be the approach of the specific professors that I have had, but I feel that my education as a preservice teacher has been rich with the teaching of diversity and multicultural studies in and for the classroom. In my experience, general education classes dealing with one singular context (such as Black American Literature or Middle Eastern Literature) have prepared me greatly for this class. In this class, these topics that I learned about before have no been forgetten or pushed aside. Instead, these and many, many other topics have been brought into the light. In this 4800 class specifically, we have talked and will continue to talk about a variety of diverse and cultural topics as they pertain to the classroom.

Is the quote that I mentioned above the "norm" for preservice education programs? If so, it has not been how my education at Western has been shaped.

Final Project Book Choice

A few days ago, I browsed through the recommended reading list for our final project. Interestingly, I had never really heard of any of the books, so everything was new to me. I read a lot of the reviews for the books on Amazon and eventually decided to go with the book Jesse by Gary Soto. I chose this book in part for the description of its content, but in larger part due to its author. Through looking at the various books on the list, as well as others, Soto's name kept coming up in relation to Hispanic Literature for young adults. His books seemed to sell well and be well received. Many of the books he writes are collections of short stories.

From what I understand, Jesse is about a boy around the age of 17 (yes, his name is Jesse) and his life growing up as a Mexican American. He lives with his brother in a run down apartment. For money, the boys do farm work and sell what they can. The book is set in the 1960's amongst the drama of the Vietnam War and political issues with Cesar Chavez.

I chose this book because it received positive reviews, and also because it seemed to have an important and interesting story to tell.... Hopefully it was a good choice! I am expecting it in the mail today!

Response to Hispanic Voices in American Literature

Why include Hispanic literature in the curriculum? Why include any varying cultural pieces?

To me, it shouldn't matter what the racial population of the classroom is, a variety of texts from a variety of authors, genres and cultural viewpoints should be taught. Isn't the point to make our students well rounded students of the world? Whether or not a student can personally relate to the races dipicted in novels is at times irrelevant. Yes, I think it is important to showcase a variety of authors from a variety of cultures, but not at the price of quality. Instead of worrying about the culture connected to a novel, choose a novel based on quality or theme. In doing this, you will most likely come up with a varied list of literature with a wide range of authors and viewpoints. It would seem that quality literaute with interesting issues and problems will be sucessful in the class. Literature does not have to be a history lesson. Sure, it can be, but in my opinion that should not be the overall goal. Literature should ignite thought and good discussion. It can be agreed and disagreed with, liked and disliked, but it should stir up some type of emotion in its readers - whether that be through a connection or disconnection.

Response to A Guide for ESL and Mainstream Teachers

While ESL students certainly do have special needs in the classroom, they are by no means cognitively impaired. They are simply special needs because of their lack of knowledge pertaining to the English Language. Student knowledge and intelligence can not accurately be measured when written in English, when a student’s first language is Spanish.

The article states that “staying up to date with current trends in education, such as technology and teaching strategies can lead to growth and stronger educators.” This idea is a powerful one. As the schools and the population of the United States grow, native Spanish speakers in the classroom are going to become more and more common. While it is not realistic to expect all educators to speak Spanish, or a second language, it is important and completely possible to stay up to date with the best practices and strategies for teaching ESL students. Acceptance is key. All students should feel comfortable in the classroom and be allowed to learn in a way that is effective for them. If I had no knowledge of Spanish I would be really nervous about ways in which to teach Spanish speaking students. How do you connect and teach students who do not understand you? In a perfect world and system, support will be in place in the schools… Until then, all teachers must learn strategies that work for these students.

My Dual Language Church Visit

This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending a mass at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Holland, MI. Here, services are offered in both English on Spanish. There is a bilingual service on Saturday nights, Spanish services on Sundays and Wednesdays, and English services on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The staff is a diverse mixture of people of both white and Hispanic decent.

While the church service that I attended was in English, I found it really interesting that church services right here in West Michigan were so diverse. I had no idea to what extent the Spanish speaking community was accomadated here. I know that Holland has a large Hispanic migrant farm worker population and I am really glad that there are places that they can easily celebrate and embrace their own language and culture locally.

What I Learned in Class Today.....

My group was asked to explore the Kalamazoo Public Schools website for information pertaining to Hispanic programs and students. I was excited to learn that KPS actually has a "dual language" elementary school called El Sol. (Which means The Sun in English - a fitting name I would say for a school that seems to be a bright spot in education.) At El Sol, all of the staff is bilingual. All parent letters and meetings are held in both Spanish and English. The school is fairly small - only about 220 students are currently enrolled. According to the KPS website, about half of the students are from Spanish speaking homes and about half are from English speaking homes.

What an awesome public school and program in general! I think that it is a great idea to begin students with speaking a second language at such a young age. This program also takes the heat off of Spanish speaking students as feeling out of place in an English speaking school system, as all of this school's students are struggling with the challenge of learning a new language.

An idea for further response and discussion:
What happens to students after they leave this school environment?
Do you think that Spanish speaking Hispanic students will succeed in their English-speaking Middle Schools?

Some Facts and Figures that I learned from Other Group Presentations:

I learned a new term: "Drop-out Factories" - a phrase that has to do with low income schools, primarily attended by students from low income families. There is a startling number of students who drop out from these institutions due to lack of opportunity, funding, community resources, etc. Sadly, even though these students and schools may need more resources they are not getting them - the cycle continues.

Detroit Public Schools:

Hispanics make up roughly 6.5-8% of the student population. (This is around the same percentage of Hispanic students in the Kalamazoo Public School System.)

Hispanic students (according to the district) have a 88% attendance rate (the highest of any ethnicity.) Despite this, only about 51% of these students are graduating...

Latino population of Detroit is only about 5%. The majority of the "Hispanic" population in the US is from Mexico.


National Hispanic Heritage Month
September 15- October 15

*began as a week long celebration, but was extended to a month in 1988.
This is the first time that I had ever heard of National Hispanic Heritage month...