Monday, March 22- Friday, March 26

Monday 3/22: Revised Letters to Will were due today. The students did a superb job with this assignment. Despite their complaints I think that the majority of them enjoyed, or at least didn't mind tolerating, this assignment. After our conferences, most all of the students submitted revisions & the letters which I sent off to Weaver were pretty darn close to perfect.

The students began presenting their Final Projects today too. I adored checking out some of these. I requested that some of the kids allow me to keep their projects so that I may use them for future assignments, and I was so happy when they agreed to my favor! The highlight of the day included a movie created by 3 of the students. Such a good chuckle!

Tuesday 3/23: Ms. Luby asked me to conclude my teaching a bit early, and so after having finished the Memory Boy unit I spent this day and the following day talking to the students about violence prevention.

I decided to construct this lesson plan in honor of the forth anniversary of the school shooting which occurred at the Red Lake High School in 2006. Knowing that many of my students were personally affected by this event, and that every student in my class has been affected by school violence of some form; I chose to spend a day focusing on character education and, specifically, violence prevention I scheduled numerous activities for this lesson, each one focusing on a different skill which could help to empower students while they may work to prevent school violence and bullying. I utilized a number of educational technologies during this lesson; I began my lesson with a video clip which showed a short news interview with a young lady named Missy Jenkins. Missy was a high school freshman when, in 1997, one of her classmates opened fire in her Kentucky school cafeteria. Missy was left paralyzed after the shooting. However, Missy’s charisma and spirit motivated her to use her experience as a lesson for students. This video clip encourages students to take a stand against school violence, help students who may show signs of loneliness or bullying, and to show respect and tolerance to others. This video served as an excellent start to the day’s lesson as it prompted discussion and questions from the students. I led students in an intriguing discussion after the Missy Jenkins video. Students asked about the Kentucky school shooting in 1997, other school shootings, and especially the shooting which took place in Red Lake. I allowed this discussion to continue on for as long as the students desired it to, since I felt that knowing the facts about school violence could help students to eradicate it from schools

Moving our lesson along, I showed the class a PowerPoint presentation which I’d previously created The PowerPoint presentation introduced to students an organization and program which I served with during my time in Middle School and High School. The specific program, STOP the Violence, empowered me a great deal during secondary school and motivated me to participate in over 200 hours of volunteer service which was geared toward violence prevention. I utilized this PowerPoint to lead students into an activity called “The Bullying Ladder.”

During this first activity, the students were divided into groups of five. Each group was given a bag which held ten slips of paper. On each slip of paper was an act of violence. Groups were instructed to work together to rank the acts of violence in order of what act hurts the most and what act hurts the least. After completing the activity, the groups were asked to share their decisions. Once everyone had shared their reasoning, I led the class in discussing the importance of tolerance and respect. I questioned the students about their thoughts concerning differing opinions and interests. We spoke about tolerating difference and respecting individuals regardless of their different beliefs, gender, sexuality, race, disability, or various eccentricities

Wednesday 3/24: We continued with our "STOP the Violence Training" today. Our second activity was called “Add a Word.” This activity encouraged students to work together to create the “world’s longest sentence.” The catch to the activity was that for the beginning of the game, groups could not talk to one another. After participating in silence, I allowed the teams to speak during the final round of our game. Naturally, the ability to communicate with group members helped the teams to find more success. This activity then led into a lengthy discussion about the value and importance of respectful interpersonal communication skills. The class discussed as a group how techniques such as including everyone in a conversation and practicing active listening skills could help to encourage tolerance and respect

One of our final activities of this day involved exploring a website called “PacerTeensAgainstBullying.” This website is geared toward Middle School students and it offers students a plethora of information about identifying the traits of a bully or victim of bullying, why people bully, the effects of bullying, and how to intervene or prevent the situations. By exploring this website, the class explored interactive activities which encouraged positive peer relations and respect for everyone

Thursday 3/25: I spent today doing a full day of observations. I observed at the Middle School -Paula Maki (7th grade LA), -Nancy Benson (EBD) for 2 hours, -Mr. Merschman (7th LA), & -Amy Skala (6th LA)

Friday 3/26: I spent all of today observing at a local charter school called Trek North. I really enjoyed this experience. The small school atmosphere was familiar and refreshing to me, and I enjoyed the school's laid back and nature-oriented focus.