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Teaching Standard 5.2: The teacher engages learners in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication to address authentic local and global issues.
Teaching Standard 5.2: The teacher engages learners in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication to address authentic local and global issues.
EVIDENCE #1: Lesson on Fair Trade Chocolate for AP French High School Class
- Lesson Handout to Discuss, Reflect, Write
- Video: La production de cacao au Ghana
- Overview of Unit from Madame Steele
DESCRIPTION: This centered around the production and trade of chocolate in West Africa, particularly in Ghana. It was a lesson I prepared and taught for Madame Steele's AP French Class at Middlebury High School during my teaching internship in the winter of 2019. The AP French learners had been studying Fair Trade Commerce & Chocolate and had already done a number of fantastic learning activities. Included here is the Unit Overview from Madame Steele.
ANALYSIS/REFLECTION: My teaching internship at Middlebury High School afforded me several rich opportunities to involve learners in critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity on real world issues. For this class, I was jumping into a unit that was well underway. The high school students had just done a chocolate tasting and a number of other activities with Madame Steele.
I wanted to engage the learners to think critically about the intersection of globalization and fair trade commerce. In sum, to address how globalization impacts us all. It was an interesting class with an unintended learning opportunity. We started out going over the handout of questions I created. We then had a brief discussion, before watching the video. I asked students to take notes during the video and stopped it a couple times to focus on a few parts for comprehension purposes.
Following the video, focused on Fair Trade chocolate in Ghana, we discussed the handout more in depth. The question of "What is globalization?" arose and generated a lot of discussion. An impromptu learning collaboration between Madame Steele, the students and myself took form as much discussion about this concept began. I decided to have small groups form to explore this topic further and find on-line resources.
This class was 90% in French, the target language as this was an AP class. We all participated in coming up with a definition for globalization and learning that in French it is called, "mondialisation." Qu'est-ce que la mondialisation was one video found and could be used to explore this issue much more in depth in future classes. This evidence reflects my mastery of this teaching standard by the topic explored, instructional activities involving collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity.
Video MM lecon - Le Chocolat au Ghana/Question Guide March 2019Overview Mme St_ Le Chocolat et le comm equitabEVIDENCE #2: Lesson on "Congo Square" in New Orleans, Louisiana. Click link for video story on the book.
Freedom in Congo Square
Nonfiction Poetry Book
Final Project Example
Words: Freedom, Congo
Final Project
Words: Freedom, Music
Final Project
Words: Dance, Music
DESCRIPTION: With Congo Square - the place and the accompanying book, as it's anchor, this unit focused on history and rich cultural and artistic traditions brought by African slaves to this country. This was for my 7th and 8th grade French students at Edmunds Middle School in Burlington. It involved reading, a video display of the content, discussion and art making. The learners had the chance to show their understanding through a multimedia expressive project by creating a mixed-media collage inspired by this little known piece of American history.
ANALYSIS/REFLECTION:
I used a non-fiction book, Freedom in Congo Square, by Carol Boston Weatherford, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, as a doorway into important global issues involving slavery, economics and residual artistic influences. It is a poetic non-fiction book that tells the story of 19th Century slaves in New Orleans who were able to gather in one place, Congo Square.
Here, in Congo Square, the students learned that slaves, who were permitted to gather once a week, were able to find some joy in difficult circumstances. As a summative assessment, students were to choose two words from the story that inspired them. Using that as a jumping off point and writing them on their construction paper, they then applied fabric and other materials I provided to create an abstract jazz-inspired artwork. The learners engaged ardently with the materials and the results were beautiful. I often encourage communication through the visual arts as evidence of learning and understanding of the topic.
About a quarter of these learners were from other countries, thus their first language was not English. I wanted to create a unit and use visual and video resources to ensure all students were able to learn as I got to know the students. Thus, I took this opportunity to introduce geopolitical history pertinent to their French language learning. The images shown here are of my very engaged 7th grade French class which was stunning, because at times there could be a couple of disruptive learners in this class. I noticed that when they were involved in making something and using their brains and their hands, these behaviors tapered. The learning process and discoveries related to art and music, specifically jazz, reflect my grasp of this standard of engaging learners creatively, collaboratively and with their critical thinking skills because of the use of a real world topic and it's historically artistic implications which resulted in their own creative output. In the future, I plan to incorporate more non-fiction books as anchors for learning French and about francophone cultural.
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