Professional Development for Teachers of English of 21st Century Learners

Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Río Piedras Facultad de Educación Centro de Investigaciones Educativas

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P r o f e s s i o n a l D e ve l o p m e n t f o r Te a c h e r s o f E n g l i s h o f 2 1 s t Ce n t u r y L e a r n e r s : E n h a n c i n g Co m m u n i c a t i ve S k i l l s T h r o u g h A r t a n d Te c h n o l o g y

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P r o f e s s i o n a l D e ve l o p m e n t f o r Te a c h e r s o f E n g l i s h o f 2 1 s t Ce n t u r y L e a r n e r s : E n h a n c i n g Co m m u n i c a t i ve S k i l l s T h r o u g h A r t a n d Te c h n o l o g y

Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Río Piedras Facultad de Educación Centro de Investigaciones Educativas

Title: Professional Development for Teachers of English of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills Through Art and Technology Copyright © 2017 Centro de Investigaciones Educativas Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Río Piedras Facultad de Educación P.O. Box 23304 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00931-3304 Project Director: Annette López de Méndez Telephone: 787-764-0000 ext. 89042 Email: cie.educacion@upr.edu Web Page: http://cie.uprrp.edu Graphic Designer: Nilsa Espasas Editor: Rosemary Morales Urbina

The Project is funded (in part) by a federal grant under the Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act. (P.L. 017-110) administered by the Puerto Rico Council of Education. Opinions and findings expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and no official endorsement by either of these agencies should be inferred.

Resources

Administrative Personnel Annette López de Méndez, Ed.D. – Director Elsie Candelaria Sosa, Ed.D. – Co-Director Zorivette Meléndez Serrano - Administrative Assistant/Coordinator Diana Rivera Viera, Ed.D. – External Evaluator

Professors Elsie Candelaria Sosa, Ed. D. Cristina Guerra Lozano, Ed. D. Jeannette Milland Vigio, MBA/TGMT Rosemary Morales Urbina, Ed. D. Aníbal Muñoz Claudio, Ed. D. Marielis Sexto Santiago, Ed.D.

Project Participants Alexandra Conde

Colegio Católico Notre Dame - Caguas

Annette Muñiz Andujar

Escuela Adela Rolón Fuentes - Toa Baja

Berta Rosa Siurano

Escuela Dr. Hiram González - Bayamón

Carmen Soto Pastrana

Escuela Antonio Rosa Guzmán - Humacao

Denisse Algorri Matos

Escuela Padre Rufo M. Fernández - Bayamón

Elisa Rodríguez Solá Heysha Díaz Meléndez

Escuela Las Virtudes - San Juan Escuela Facundo Bueso - San Juan

Irma Iris Torres Feliciano

Escuela Adolfina Irrizarry de Puig - Vega Baja

Janivette Lebrón Rivera

Escuela Haydee Caballero Torres - Caguas

Jeanette Nieves Cobián

Escuela Elemental Rexville - Toa Alta

José Luis Gómez Santana Juan Yllescas Hernández Julissa Muñoz Berdiel Laurimar Flores Soto Leyda R. Ortiz Claudio Lillian Serrano Quiles Maribel Collazo Michele Munich Rivera

Escuela Francisco Oller - Cataño Escuela Mercedes García de Colorado - Cataño Colegio Católico Notre Dame - Caguas Commonwealth-Parkville School - San Juan Escuela José Nevárez Landrón - Toa Baja Escuela María C. Osorio - Toa Baja Colegio Calados - Bayamón Escuela Francisco Oller - Cataño

Mirnaly Berríos Candelaria

Escuela Onofre Carballeira - Cataño

Nedynia López Correa

Adolfina Irrizarry de Puig - Toa Baja

Raymond Córdova Escalesa

Escuela Onofre Carballeira - Cataño

Roxana Silva Robles Thalice Rodríguez Torres Yineska Rosario Pérez Yolanda Morales Collazo Zuliet Rivera Ferrer

Escuela Francisco Oller - Toa Baja Colegio Calados - Bayamón Escuela Adriana Medina - Humacao Escuela Laura Navarro - Juncos Escuela Abelardo Díaz Alfaro - San Juan

Contents Prologue

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Annette López de Méndez, Ed.D.

The Importance of Literacies in the 21st Century: An Unavoidable Challenge for Education Elsie Candelaria Sosa, Ed.D.

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To Link or Not to Link: Hyper-linked Millennials’ Reading/Writing Dilemma!

Aníbal Muñoz Claudio, Ed.D.

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One Size DOES NOT Fit All: The Basics of Differentiating Instruction Cristina Guerra, Ed. D.

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Why Teaching Digital Citizenship Matters Rosemary Morales Urbina, Ed. D.

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Encouraging our English Teachers to Integrate Technology and Art into Their Classroom Marielis Sexto Santiago, Ed. D.

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Participants’ Contributions & Lesson Plans

PBL: Let Me Fly Free World Music Tour Annette Muñiz Andújar

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Tiorama Project: A Pictorial Representation of Characters from Cantenbury Tales Laurimar Flores, JD

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Fables Integrated with Habitats in the Science Class Alexandra Conde

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Graphic Novels in the ESL Classroom: Graphic Novel Exploration Julissa A. Muñoz Berdiel

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Puerto Rico Travel Brochure Mirnaly Berríos Candelaria

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Infinite Explosion Box Character Traits Lillian Serrano Quiles

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The Integration of English in Students’ Daily Routines Thalice Rodríguez Torres

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Creating a Poetry Notebook to Engage English Language Learners Heysha M. Díaz Meléndez

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It’s a Mystery Michele Munich

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Creating a Journal Portfolio Juan Yllescas Hernández

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10.4 My World Nedynia López

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Knowing Puerto Rico: The Taino Culture Berta Teresa Rosa Siurano

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Immigration and Emmigration Maribel Collazo

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Reading and Writing with Flat Stanley Jeanette Nieves

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Visiting Puerto Rico Janivette Lebrón

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Participants Reflections

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My Experience Applying the Strategies Learned in the Workshops at the University of Puerto Rico Denise M. Algorri Matos

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Professional Development for English Teachers Of 21st Century Learners: Enticing ESL Students to Acquire Communicative Competence Through Art and Technology Juan Yllescas

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Reflection for The 21st Century Proposal Yineska Rosario

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Engaging, Enthusiastic, and Motivating Teaching Strategies that My Students Love Learnt from the Proposal Roxanna Del Mar Silva Robles

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The Dilemma of Teaching in the Public Schools in Puerto Rico Zuliet Rivera Ferrer

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Prologue

The Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills through Art and Technology Project was sponsored by a grant from the Puerto Rico Higher Education Council, No Child Left Behind, Title II Funds (NCLB – 15-01). We are immensely grateful for this support, which recognizes the responsibility of the University of Puerto Rico to provide teachers with professional development activities as a tool to improve the teaching and learning process for all learners in schools.

The 20th century introduced dramatic changes to society that have considerably altered the way almost everything is done. Most of these are related to science and computer technology and they have forever altered our lifestyle and the way we live, work, and play. These changes have also affected the skills needed to function in our modern world. Educational systems are designed to serve society’s needs and should be altered and adjusted in tandem with the changes that society imposes upon them.

The omnipresence of scientiďŹ c and technological advances requires that schools adapt their curriculum to the trends and new sets of skills that are appropriate for 21st century life. Learners in this century have also changed and their needs are different from those traditional schools that are designed to meet those needs.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), an organization that was founded in 2002 as a coalition bringing together the business community, education leaders, and policymakers in order to start a national conversation on the importance of 21st century skills, states in their publication entitled P21 Framework

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Definitions (2009) that they advocate the “integration of skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and communication into the teaching of core academic subjects such as English, reading and language arts, world languages, the arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography, history, government and civics” (p. 9). However, beyond any changes made to standards and guidelines that can be enacted by school boards and administrators, teachers must be conscious of these changes because they are the ones that are closest to the students.

These developments and globalization require the use of English as a lingua franca in these processes.

Crystal (2003) states that “a language achieves genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country” (p. 3). In fact, Crystal believes English has done precisely that since English is now the language most widely taught as a foreign language – in over 100 countries, such as China, Russia, Germany, Spain, Egypt, and Brazil – and in most of these countries it is emerging as the chief foreign language to be encountered in schools, often displacing another language in the process. In 1996, for example, English replaced French as the chief foreign language in schools in Algeria, a former French colony (p. 5).

Learning English within these parameters is no longer a choice; it is a requirement. Preparing English teachers that are cognizant of these events and that recognize and accept the need to change is essential.

The purpose of this Project is to offer a professional training program to teachers of English that will enable them to understand and serve the needs of modern society and the 21st century children they serve. Innovative strategies that can enhance the English language learner’s communicative competence will kindle their interest in language education and promote student learning. This training responds to the needs of both public and private schools of the Bayamón Region and will allow these teachers to update their knowledge regarding the latest developments in language teaching and learning as identified by recent research.

The Context The Project concentrated its efforts in teachers from public and private schools coming from San Juan, Bayamón, Caguas, Cataño, Humacao, Juncos, Toa Alta, Toa Baja, and Vega Baja. In order to plan and design this Project, the Education Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico met with Prof. Beatriz Philpott, Puerto Rico Department of Education (DE) English Program Director and Lizette de Jesús, DE Bayamón Region English facilitator to discuss students’ and teachers’ needs. With their help a needs assessment survey was administered to a group of 20 teachers from the Toa Alta School District. Results demonstrated that the majority of teachers marked as highest priority the need to enhance their knowledge in the following topics: • Reading comprehension • Strategies that work • Differentiated instruction and the ESL classroom

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• Technological tools to enhance reading and writing • A look at what the 21st century can provide • 21st century learners and skills • Teaching listening and speaking skills • Problem Based Learning (PBL) • The application of technology to the production of digital stories Project Goals and Objectives The Project envisions the following goals: a) Achieve a high degree competent educator who can implement teaching strategies pertinent to the educational growth of learners, b) Facilitate the professional development of 25 teachers in the areas of defining 21st century skills, c) Integrate the arts and technology to the English curriculum in order to develop learning communities and better learners’ academic achievement, d) Promote and disseminate participants’ lesson plans through the design of lesson plans based on DE Curriculum Core Standards, e) Disseminate the Project’s results through a publication.

In order to achieve the stated goals, the following activities were established: a) Recruit 25 teachers from the Bayamón School District and six private schools from the same area, b) Offer 119 hours of professional development, c) Offer advice and mentoring to participant teachers in the areas of integrating the arts and technology to enhance the ESL curriculum, d) Increase participants’ knowledge and awareness of the need to integrate the arts, technology, and assessment strategies through curriculum alignment, e) Demonstrate how to integrate different topics to the development of English language acquisition through strategic planning and the implementation of innovative lessons, f) Increase students’ interest and academic background regarding 21st century skills, the arts and technology.

Instructional Plan This Project is based on the premise that the development of communicative competence benefits from the use of different approaches to prompt teachers’ and students’ awareness that language proficiency is required for effective communication. Researchers in the areas of linguistics, sociology, psychology, education, and curriculum development such as Brown (2001, 2007), Crystal (1997, 2003, 2004), Dodge (1998), Ginn (1999), Rassias (1998), Tabert (2008), Wesch (2010), Wiles and Bondi (2014), and Zapel (1999) advocate the use of visual and performing arts, technology, and recent assessment strategies in the development of communicative competence. This Project reaffirms the following postulates:

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• The use of different approaches and strategies contributes to improved rewarding and quicker acquisition and learning of a language. This is accomplished through the integration of poetry, drama, movies, music, and the radio to the teaching lessons.

• Observing and thinking about art and poetry triggers in the individual the interpretation of the messages artists and writers intend to convey. This, in turn, stimulates critical thinking, creativity, and the construction and interpretation of meaning.

• The use of Problem Based Learning (PBL), concept development, differentiated instruction, technology, and Understanding by Design (UBD) for the creation of digital stories, blogs, and chatrooms contribute to the exploration and understanding of concepts and the integration of new technology into the ESL classroom. These strategies nurture the development of skills needed to function in the 21st century.

• The integration of different subject areas develops cognitive abilities, understanding, and tolerance for divergent opinions and problem resolution, which are essential to the development of critical thinking skills.

• The effective educator understands the importance of assessment and the need to combine evaluation and assessment strategies in the appraisal of student learning outcomes.

Based on the aforementioned postulates and assumptions, the following instructional plan was developed: • Summer Institute (June, 2016) – Participants met for 15 days in conferences, hands on workshops on teaching strategies in topics such as 21st century skills, assessment of 21st century skills, PBL in the ESL classroom, enhancing reading comprehension, differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, UBD, language production through writing, phonemic awareness and listening comprehension, listening and speaking teaching strategies in the use of movies as a source of idiomatic expressions, using authentic videos in the ESL classroom, the virtual museum and visiting the museum, using music for creative writing, using poetry to enhance language teaching and learning, using the radio for listening comprehension, technological tools to enhance language learning, the application of technology to the production of digital stories, hyper-texting and visual literacy activities, using masks to engage students in listening and speaking tasks, and literature and our society.

• Saturday work sessions (August to December, 2016) – Participants attended a series of 10 lectures and workshops, where special attention was given to planning and lesson development to integrate English skills to the arts, technology, 21st century curriculum, UBD, and other school topics and disciplines.

• TESOL Convention (November, 2016) – Participants attended the convention to promote the importance of becoming a TESOL member in order to remain updated in their professional development and be part of past project presentations.

• The follow-up and dissemination phase (August 2016 – May, 2017) consisted of visiting 50% of the participants (12 teachers) by the Project faculty, two times during the period of August to November, 2016 and January to May, 2017. Teachers were observed implementing a selected

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teaching strategy, interviewed about their teaching success, identifying challenges, and the impact of their teaching in students’ performance and attitudes toward learning in the English class.

• From November to December 2016, articles written by the faculty and teachers’ reflections and lesson plans were collected, edited, and published in a teachers’ Manual. The Manual will be used to disseminate the Project’s achievements by presenting it to the Puerto Rico Department of Education English Program administrators, participating schools’ faculty and parents, and at the 2017 PRTESOL Conference, among other conventions. In addition, the publication will be distributed to different universities and public libraries in Puerto Rico, and published at the Education Research Center, UPR-RP Web Site.

The Product: The Teachers’ Manual The Manual is composed of two sections. The reader will find the articles prepared by the faculty who gave the workshops, and the reflections and lesson plans prepared by the participating teachers. This culminating effort has the purpose to make public the Project’s achievements through a long and arduous journey, but in the long run a very satisfying and productive one for participating teachers, their students, their families, and their schools. The experience has enriched all of our lives, with new knowledge, dispositions, and skills that promise our schools a better future.

There is nothing that makes us more proud than presenting the articles, reflections and lesson plans produced by the faculty and the participants. The Project has been a teaching and learning experience from which we all can absorb its benefits and value. It has also been an opportunity to provide the time to renovate the teachers’ commitment to the profession, to explore and experiment with the use of technology and the arts in the teaching of English as a second language. Lastly, the Project may be seen as a ray of hope that wishes that this effort will make small changes that will impact the classroom environment in order to instill in our students the desire to learn. In words of one of the participants, “We may not be able to change the educational system as a whole. However, with the changes we make in our own classrooms, we can guarantee that these children learn, and more importantly, fall in love with learning” (Alexandra Conde, participating teacher).

Annette López de Méndez, Ed. D. Project Director

References Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd. ed.).

White Plains, NY: Longman.

Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Crystal, D. (1977). English as global language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Crystal, D. (2004). The language revolution. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Dodge, D. (1998). Creative drama in the second language classroom. Action Research. Pathway not available, pp.1-2.

Ginn, W. Y. (1999). Jean Piaget-intellectual development. Retrieved from http://english.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html.

Rassias Foundation. (1998). Language in action: A profile of professor Rassias. Retrieved from http://Dartmouth.edu/artsci/ rassias/JAR.html Tabert, J. (2008). A brief history of ESC instruction: Theories, methodologies, upheavals. Re-trieved from http://papersbyjoantaber. blogspot.com/2005/05/brief-history-of-esl-instruction.html The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009). P21 framework definitions. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/storage/ documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf Wesch, M. (2010). Web 2.0 and new viral communities: Welcome to 21st century schools. Retrieved from http:// www.21stcenturyschools.com Wiles, J., & Bondi, J. (2010). Curriculum development: A guide to practice. White Plains, NY: Longman Pearson.

Zapel, A. L. (Ed.). (1999). 1999-2000 Theater, drama, and speech resources. Catalog #144. Colorado, Springs, CO: Meriwether Publishing.

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The Importance of Literacies in the 21st Century: An Unavoidable Challenge for Education Elsie Candelaria Sosa, Ed. D.

Introduction In the 20th century, literacy was usually defined as “the ability to read and write” (Oxford Living Dictionaries, n. d.); even now, 17 years into the 21st century, one will still find this definition in many sources. As a product of 20th century education, that was the definition I accepted for many years and I considered reading and writing to be among the most important features of language teaching and learning. As an English as a second language (ESL) teacher, getting my students to master these language skills seemed paramount.

All of a sudden things started to change with the advent of technology and information processing.

In the 1980s, when the first personal computer was launched by International Business Machines, Inc. (IBM), everyone thought that this was a great tool that would help get things done faster and better. The profound changes that personal computers and information technology would have on our daily life may have been largely underestimated at the time. I do not want to spend a lot of time detailing these changes, so I am going to take a 30 years leap and fast forward into the state of society today.

If you live in any developed country in today’s world, you are familiar with the Internet, smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets, e-readers, artificial intelligence, voice activation, and the smart home, among others. We are surrounded by our gadgets and cannot leave home without them. These changes have occurred at an incredible speed and are at a scale that is essentially unprecedented in known human history. The last 100 years of human technical evolution far outpace well-known periods of human intellectual and technical development, such as the Renaissance or the 18th century, also known as the Age of Enlightenment.

The impact that technology has had, and will probably continue to have, on society is enormous. As an educator, I am also well aware of the symbiotic connection that exists between education and society’s evolution.

Education from a Socio-Historical perspective Societal changes have traditionally been responsible for changes in education. Gray (2008) states that if we want to understand why standard schools are what they are today, we have to abandon the idea that they are products of logical necessity or scientific insight. They are, instead, products of history. Schooling, as

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it exists today, only makes sense if we view it from a historical perspective (para. 3). Furthermore, schools as we know them, are a fairly recent development and a product of the need to develop in children the skills that the prevailing social structures deem vital for their successful inclusion, as adults, into the social order.

If we look at the historical evolution of humans, we find that the needs of hunter-gatherers were very different from our own. Gray (2008) tells us that before the advent of agriculture The hunter-gatherer way of life had been skill-intensive and knowledge-intensive, but not labor intensive. To be effective hunters and gatherers, people had to acquire a vast knowledge of the plants and animals on which they depended and of the landscapes within which they foraged.

They also had to develop great skill in crafting and using the tools of hunting and gathering.

They had to be able to take initiative and be creative in finding foods and tracking game.

However, they did not have to work long hours, and the work they did was exciting, not dreary.

Anthropologists have reported that the hunter-gatherer groups they studied did not distinguish between work and play essentially all of life was understood as play. (para. 7) Children within a hunter gatherer society were free to play because playing and learning the skills they needed in order to survive were seen as equals. This changed dramatically when humans discovered agriculture.

Hunter gatherers were nomads and permanent settlements did not exist because they were not practical; groups moved from one place to another as seasons changed or food ran out. The minute humans discovered they could manipulate nature and plant seeds that could produce a steady source of food; the social needs of groups changed and a new social order emerged.

With agriculture, people could produce more food, which allowed them to have more children.

Agriculture also allowed people (or forced people) to live in permanent dwellings, where their crops were planted, rather than live a nomadic life. This in turn allowed people to accumulate property (Gray, 2008, para. 8).

Settlements were built close to rivers or lakes that could provide water for planted crops and for other human needs. However, farming required a completely different set of skills. Instead of learning how to hunt, set traps, or distinguish edible plants, children could now be used as cheap hands for the family farm.

Successful farming required long hours of relatively unskilled, repetitive labor, much of which could be done by children. With larger families, children had to work in the fields to help feed their younger siblings, or they had to work at home to help care for those siblings. Children’s lives changed gradually from the free pursuit of their own interests to increasingly more time spent at work that was required to serve the rest of the family (Gray, 2008, para. 9).

As farms grew, so did the cities. If you were a property owner, you could claim certain privileges in this new social scheme. Eventually, “agriculture and the associated ownership of land and accumulation of property also created, for the first time in history, clear status differences” (Gray, 2008, para. 9).

Reading and writing emerged from the gradual rise of more complex civilizations in the river valleys of Egypt and Babylonia, [where] knowledge became too complicated to transmit directly from person to person and from generation to generation. To be able to function in complex

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societies, man needed some way of accumulating, recording, and preserving his cultural heritage.

With the rise of trade, government, and formal religion came the invention of writing, by about 3100 BC (Guisepi, n.d., para. 1).

The complexity of city living created a need for schools “because firsthand experience in everyday living could not teach such skills as writing and reading” (Guisepi, n.d., para. 2). The need for schools also created a need for teachers, which at this time were “a group of adults specially designated as teachers-the scribes of the court and the priests of the temple” (Guisepi, n.d., para. 2). In these civilizations, most children continued to learn through informal apprenticeships and only a small group received formal schooling. Ancient Greece and Rome also had schools for their children and both believed that the final goal of a school education, much like we still believe today, was to produce a good citizen. It is important to point out that for the Romans “a good citizen meant an effective speaker” (Guisepi, n. d., para. 17).

Upon the fall of Rome, landowners continued to amass ever increasing wealth and systems of slavery surfaced that ultimately led to feudalism. This was an extremely hierarchical society that consisted of a few kings and lords at the top, while most people, children included, were their servants (Gray, 2008).

During the Middle Ages, the medieval church preserved what was left of Western learning. Guisepi (n. d.) states that Cathedral, monastic, and palace schools were operated by the clergy in parts of Western Europe.

Most students were future or present members of the clergy, though a few lay students were trained to be clerks. Unlike the Greek and Roman schools, which sought to prepare men for this life, the church schools sought to prepare men for life beyond the grave through the contemplation of God during their life on Earth. (para. 18) It is very important to point out that the 12th and 13th centuries saw the rise of the universities. The university curriculum in about 1200 consisted of what were then called the seven liberal arts. These were grouped into two divisions. The first was the preparatory trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

The second, more advanced division, was the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

(Guisepi, n.d., para. 26) Education for children followed the social hierarchy very closely. Medieval education, by the 12th century, included the education of women. Most convents educated women and girls from noble families who were enrolled at Notre Dame de Paris (Guisepi, n. d.). Young aristocrats received a chivalric education, which included “some poetry, national history, heraldry, manners and customs, physical training, dancing, a little music, and battle skills”. (Guisepi, n. d., para. 32) The cities, however, continued to grow and the development of trade and the need for goods gave way to the rise of business and crafts. With the rise of industry, a new bourgeoisie class appeared and feudalism gradually subsided (Gray, 2008). The need for laborers also increased and children became apprentices to all sorts of craftsmen. Reading and writing were not that important in this world, at least not for a child.

Gray (2008) very skillfully sums up what occurred after the discovery of agriculture when he states that In sum, for several thousand of years after the advent of agriculture, the education of children was, to a considerable degree, a matter squashing their willfulness in order to make them good laborers. A good child was an obedient child, who suppressed his or her urge to play and explore and dutifully carried out the orders of adult masters. (para. 12)

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During the Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 14th century and spread to other European countries in the 15th and 16th centuries, a revolt against the focus of human endeavor on God and religion occurred.

A return to classic Greek ideals, as expressed in the literature of ancient Greece, characterizes humanism which is “the term generally applied to the predominant social philosophy and intellectual and literary currents of the period from 1400 to 1650” (Kreis, 2016, para.1). Like Greek education, humanist education was geared toward the development of an individual’s intellectual, spiritual, and physical powers in a manner that would enrich their life (Guisepi, n.d.).

According to Kreis (2016), the most important trait of this period was the recovery, to a certain degree, of the secular and humane philosophy of Greece and Rome. Another humanist trend, which cannot be ignored, was the rebirth of individualism, which, developed by Greece and Rome to a remarkable degree, had been suppressed by the rise of a caste system in the later Roman Empire by the Church and by feudalism in the Middle Ages (para. 12).

One extremely important event in human history occurred during the Renaissance and that was the invention of the printing press in 1440. This invention made books more widely available and increased literacy rates. Even so, school attendance did not increase greatly and elementary schools educated middle-class children; lower-class children received little formal schooling and humanist ideals did not filter down to them.

Gray (2008) states that “the idea and practice of universal, compulsory public education developed gradually in Europe, from the early 16th century on into the 19th” (para. 14). Gray also states that Much of the impetus for universal education came from the emerging Protestant religions.

Martin Luther declared that salvation depends on each person’s own reading of the Scriptures. A corollary, not lost on Luther, was that each person must learn to read and must also learn that the Scriptures represent absolute truths and that salvation depends on understanding those truths.

Luther and other leaders of the Reformation promoted public education as Christian duty, to save souls from eternal damnation. (Gray, 2008, para. 15) While this occurred in Europe, a similar phenomenon was also occurring in the American colonies where “in the mid-17th century, Massachusetts became the first colony to mandate schooling, the clearly stated purpose of which was to turn children into good Puritans” (Gray, 2008, para. 16). In America, most poor children learned through apprenticeship and had no formal schooling at all. Those who did go to elementary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. The secondary school followed the Latin grammar school European model. The teachers were not well prepared, perhaps less so than the teachers in Europe. Harvard College, founded in 1636, had as its primary purpose the training of Latin school graduates for the ministry and like most of the colleges in Europe; its curriculum was humanist (Guisepi, n.d.).

Great scientific discoveries and the invention of new machines that allowed for the mechanical production of goods appeared between the 18th and 19th centuries (also known as the Industrial Revolution). These marvelous developments did little to change schools. Most schools were still geared to comply with specific agendas. For example, employers in industry saw schooling as a way to create better workers. To them, the most crucial lessons were punctuality, following directions, tolerance for long hours of tedious work, and a minimal ability to read and write. From their point of view (though they may not have put it this way), the duller the subjects taught in schools the better (Gray, 2008, para. 16).

With the emergence of nationalism and nations during the 19th century, national leaders saw schooling as means of creating good patriots and future soldiers. To them, the crucial lessons were about the glories

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of the fatherland, the wondrous achievements and moral virtues of the nation’s founders and leaders, and the necessity to defend the nation from evil forces elsewhere (Gray, 2008, para. 16). The usual subjects taught in 19th century schools were reading, writing, religion, and arithmetic. Sadly, many times “the teacher was often poorly informed; frequently, he taught because he was unable to get any other kind of work” (Guisepi, n. d., para. 67).

Perhaps the most serious dilemma was related to the fact that adults determined what children had to learn without taking into account what children wanted. Thus, according to Gray (2008), Everyone involved in the founding and support of schools had a clear view about what lessons children should learn in school. ... nobody believed that children left to their own devices, even in a rich setting for learning, would all learn just exactly the lessons that they (the adults) deemed to be so important. All of them saw schooling as inculcation, the implanting of certain truths and ways of thinking into children’s minds. The only known method of inculcation, then as well as now, is forced repetition and testing for memory of what was repeated. (para.17) Schools were in charge of shaping children as required by the social agenda the school served; regretfully, that goal included all sorts of physical punishment. Yet, 19th century schools did have some redeeming moments with progressive thinkers that did believe that children should be treated as such, and not as miniature adults. Guisepi (n. d.) states that one of these outstanding teachers was Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). His school, located at Yverdon, Switzerland, used methods developed by him to teach children. The school drew international visitors that were presented with physically active children —running, jumping, and playing. They saw small children learning the names of numbers by counting real objects and preparing to learn reading by playing with letter blocks. They saw older children engaged in object lessons —progressing in their study of geography from observing the area around the school, to measuring it, making their own relief maps of it, and finally seeing a professionally executed map of it (Guisepi, n.d., para. 69). Pestalozzi believed that “the teacher’s job was to guide —not distort-— the natural growth of the child by selecting his experiences and then directing those experiences toward the realm of ideas” (Guisepi, n.d., para. 70).

American education branches away from European education in the 18th century due to a distinctive historical juncture. A new, vibrant nation was about to be born in the midst of an explosion of scientific knowledge and fascinating discoveries. With centuries of growth behind them, change occurred at a measured pace in Europe; in America there were countless avenues of progression to be explored.

Guisepi (n. d.) states that during the 18th century As the spirit of science, commercialism, secularism, and individualism quickened in the Western world, education in the colonies was called upon to satisfy the practical needs of seamen, merchants, artisans, and frontiersmen. The effect of these new developments on the curriculum in American schools was more immediate and widespread than its effect in European schools.

Practical content was soon competing vigorously with religious concerns. (para. 62) The American school curriculum added to the traditional Latin school subjects that were closer to everyday life, such as “history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra, surveying, modern languages, navigation, and astronomy” (Guisepi, n.d., para. 68).

In the 19th century, American education completely severed its ties with Europe through the establishment of state-supported, secular free schools for all children, which began in the 1820s with the common (elementary) school. By the end of the 19th century, the common-school system was adopted by most

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states (Guisepi, n.d.). The American system continued to grow with the appearance of the American high school; this secondary level of instruction allowed children to enrich their common-school education.

Land-grant colleges, an effort of the United States federal government to establish state-owned colleges and universities, completed the American educational ladder. Thus, high school became a preparation for college—“the step by which students who had begun at the lowest rung of the educational ladder might reach the highest” (Guisepi, n.d., para. 84).

During the 20th century, school systems continued to grow in tandem with the exponential population growth of the human race; this growth also promoted the advent of huge, sprawling urban areas we call megalopolis. Similarly, education and schools grew in size and in complexity. The American curriculum in the 20th century was expanded to include subjects such as chemistry, biology, and physics, among others.

The child was now given a job, school. School hours were extended and the school day now consisted of at least six hours (that did not include extracurricular activities). The idea of curriculum development and design developed during this century thanks in part to the work of Ralph Tyler. Tyler (1957) defines curriculum as ‘‘all the learning experiences of students planned and directed by the school to attain its educational goal’’ (p. 57). The 20th century also saw the acceptance of education as a recognized field of knowledge and teacher preparation programs appeared in college and universities. States had had Boards of Education since very early in the history of American Education; however, the United States Federal Government first created a cabinet-level position for the newly designated Department of Education in 1980.

This historical review serves to establish an inextricable connection between society’s evolution and needs and the governance and goals of schools. The reader should keep in mind, as we go on to discuss the importance of literacies, the following features: (1) Schools are now part of a child’s life; yet, the child has very little control over what is done in school; (2) going to school is mandatory; (3) reading and writing are still considered essential elements of the curriculum; and (4) change is inevitable.

Literacy or literacies?

As stated in the introduction, literacy was traditionally defined as the ability to read and write.

This definition served humanity well when knowledge was easily stored and retrieved on paper. However, the last half of the 20th century brought electronic data to life. Text, images, and sound can now be converted into complex strings of zeros and ones that can be coded, stored, transmitted, decoded, and retrieved instantaneously. The task literacy usually assigned is now different; more intricate and simple, all at the same time.

Technology has existed since humanity first appeared on planet Earth…digital technology, however, is a completely new concept. When alphabets were developed and writing made reading possible through coding and decoding, the idea that sound and image would also be a part of this equation was not an expected occurrence. Digital technology made this combination real. How does this situation change literacy? For one, literacy is no longer just one and it is also no longer just reading and writing. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) (2013), through a position paper, provided a definition to what they call 21st century literacies which states that Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because

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technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the 21st century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, [or] much literacy. These literacies are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities, and social trajectories of individuals and groups.

Active, successful participants in this 21st century global society must be able to: • Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology; • Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought; • Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes; • Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information; • Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts; • Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments (NCTE,2013, para. 1).

Thus, a series of skills and multiple literacies are required to be a fruitful member of a globalized, multicultural, and digital world. If we take a critical look at the NCTE’s definition, we can recognize literacies that have also been identified by other sources.

For example, Tyner (2009) mentions six literacies: Computer literacy, network literacy, technology literacy, information literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy. The first three in the list focus on “equitable access to information tools” (p. 6). She goes on to explain that these literacies are just the initial threshold of literacy and that “to reach a more sophisticated notion of literacy in the digital world, schools must address the integration of new forms of information resources in educational settings” (p. 6). The other three forms of literacy — information literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy—“have the potential to go the distance beyond access, to address the productive uses of information technologies for teaching and learning” (p. 6). She suggests a synthesis of these three literacies, under a still to be determined term in the future. Furthermore, she states that a profound vision of literacy cannot occur “without drastic and corresponding changes in the nature of schooling” (p. 8). Additionally, Tyner (2009) states that As the educational system struggles to switch from the literacy appropriate for the Industrial Revolution to those literacies compatible with the Information Age, the tension for reform mounts. But for what purposes? Traditional compulsory public schooling is a worthy and well-intentioned idea that still has a fighting chance for survival if it can align theory and practice to accommodate the authentic literacy needs of students awash in information. (p. 9) Another set of literacies can be found in the proposals set forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This group is very interested in developing curriculum guidelines and advocates the integration of critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills into the teaching of the core academic subjects. They promote the existence of several types of literacies. Among the literacies they pursue we find: financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy; civic literacy; health literacy; and environmental literacy. Each one of these is more closely related to daily living skills and less to the impact that digital technology has had on reading and writing.

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However, the literacies grouped under the heading of Information, Media, and Technology Skills are closely linked to the ones previously described in this article. According to the P21 Organization, information literacy refers to the ability to 1. Access and Evaluate Information a. Access information efficiently (time) and effectively (sources) b. Evaluate information critically and competently 2. Use and Manage Information a. Use information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand b. Manage the flow of information from a wide variety of sources c. Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information (P21 Framework Definitions, 2015, p. 5).

3. Media literacy refers to the ability to a. Analyze Media i. Understand both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes ii. Examine how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded, and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors iii. Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of media b. Create Media Products i. Understand and utilize the most appropriate media creation tools, characteristics and conventions ii. Understand and effectively utilize the most appropriate expressions and interpretations in diverse, multi-cultural environments (P21 Framework Definitions, 2015, p. 5).

Information, communications and technology (ICT) literacy is defined as the ability to Apply Technology Effectively 1. Use technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information 2. Use digital technologies (computers, PDAs, media players, GPS, etc.), communication/ networking tools and social networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information to successfully function in a knowledge economy 3. Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information technologies (P21 Framework Definitions, 2015, pp. 5-6).

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The Challenge for Education After looking at the possible alternatives to what these new literacies can be construed to be, we must weigh in the benefit that our prior historical experiences (and mistakes) can provide when we attempt to redesign our school system. Digital technology has changed society and is poised to change schools.

However, we need to consider the lessons learned and be careful to avoid the pitfall of making changes based on our “adult” perspective.

One additional danger that needs to be injected into the blueprint for reform in the 21st century is something that Prensky (2001) calls “a singularity” (p. 1). He goes on to describe his take on 21st century students and states that Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.

Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer g a m e s , email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. (p. 1) Furthermore, Prensky (2001) posits that this context makes “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors” (p. 1). The name he coined for them was Digital Natives, since they all seem to be “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (p. 1). Perhaps even more troublesome for teachers, administrators, policy makers, and parents is the possibility presented and argued for in Prensky (2001) that It is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed – and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed (p. 3).

Therein lies the challenge for education…for the future of schools. No longer can we look at schooling and school systems as the means to complete the tasks that social structural agendas want served; we now have to consider the possibility that today’s youth will not be willing to submit quietly to the wishes of society.

Final comments As a digital immigrant, a term coined by Prensky (2001) to refer to “those of us who were not born into the digital world, but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology” (p. 3), I accept the fact that I do not fully understand the way my students process and use information. Yet, I can recognize the need to close the disconnect that exists between the school system, a product of 19th century society, which include teachers, administrators, policy makers, and parents who are digital immigrants nurtured and formed within the 20th century, and 21st century students, the digital natives that have developed new ways to process and use information and brain structures that are dissimilar from ours.

The bridge that can close this disconnect must include new literacies, new freedoms, and a reconceptualization of educational goals. Schools and school systems need to include new literacy skills and less content (memorization of knowledge is not important when you have Google). Students need freedom to learn and have free use of the digital tools their lives are immersed in practically since birth.

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Teachers are role models, guides, and sometimes, learners, particularly when a student displays more expertise in the use of digital tools in this new school. Change is inevitable if schools wish to avoid extinction.

References Guisepi, R. (n. d.). The history of education. Retrieved from http://history-world.org/history_of_education.htm Gray, P. (2008, August 20). A brief history of education. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedomlearn/200808/brief-history-education Kreis, S. (2016, February 6). Renaissance humanism. Retrieved from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/humanism.html Literacy. (2017) In Oxford Living Dictionaries. Retrieved February 2017, From https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literacy National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (2013, February 5). The NCTE definition of 21st century literacies. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentdefinition Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9 (5), pp. 1-6.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2015). P21 framework definitions. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/ docs/P21_Framework_Definitions_New_Logo_2015.pdf Tyler, R.W. (1957). The curriculum then and now. In the Proceedings of the 1956 Invitational Conference on Testing Problems. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Tyner, K. (2009). Literacy in a digital world: Teaching and learning in the age of information. New York, NY: Routledge

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To Link or Not to Link: Hyper-linked Millennials’ Reading/Writing Dilemma!

Dr. Aníbal Muñoz Claudio

Are millennials reading and writing more today than their 20th century counterparts? Perhaps, an even better question should be, Are they learning more proficiently with their accessible 21st century hyperlinked sources?

After all, millennials seem to be permanently attached to their cell phones, tablets, Kindles, online video games, and social network chatrooms 24/7. One could easily argue there is no doubt that these ‘trending’ Pokémon-go-millennials are, by far, the best readers and writers in the history of humankind if we take into consideration two irrefutable facts: they have more and faster reading and writing resources at their disposal, and they seem to be fully engaged in some kind of reading and writing activity at all times.

To prove this point, the exercise is very simple. Take a look at any corner of any given place at any given time and you will notice millennials reading and writing “something” almost 24 hours a day.

These individuals are either sending or reading text messages, Instagramming, snap-chatting, tweeting, playing online games (in which you have to read and decode messages) chatting on social networks, or googling just about every trending topic that surfaces through media or social networks.

The reading/writing dilemma for these millennials arises when we think about the quality or meaningfulness of these reading and writing instances. Are these just empty meaningless activities, or are they worth something? These and many more questions regarding millennials’ attitudes and dispositions towards reading and writing are being debated nowadays by scholars around the world.

Are they reading more or less than older generations? Are they writing more or less? However, even more than the quantity, there is the issue of value. Are they acquiring any worthy knowledge or skills?

Are they selecting better reading materials? Are they writing better and more competently?

According to Jones and Wright (2010), in amidst the debate about what millennial are reading or writing, there is always the issue of worth and efficiency. The argument can escalade when we reflect upon the nature of the content of what millennials read and the accuracy of their writing pieces. It is a very different comparison when we think about a 20th century learner who could have written one beautiful poem or a well-articulated essay in one month than to think of a millennial who could probably write hundreds or thousands of text messages and tweets of just a few words filled with acronyms and emoticons on a daily basis.

To further expand the discussion of who reads or writes the most and who reads or writes better between millennial and 20th century students, we must consider the most important element of this debate. It’s called hyper texting or hyperlinking. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary (2016), since hyper-

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generally means “above or beyond”, hyper texting is something that has gone beyond the limitations of ordinary text. Thus, unlike the text in a book, hyperlinking permits you, by clicking with a mouse, to immediately access texts in one of millions of different electronic sources. The term, hypertext, is now so familiar that most computer users may not even know that the word was coined by Ted Nelson back in the early 1960s. It took a few more years for hypertext to actually be created by Douglas Engelbart, and then quite a few more years later before the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1991.

Hypertext usually refers to any text available on the World Wide Web that contains links to other documents or information. The use of hypertext is a way of presenting information in which texts, sounds, video, images, and actions are linked together in a way that allows you to jump around and between them in whatever order you choose.

According to David S. Miall and Teresa Dobson (2001), in their paper titled, Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature, hypertext has been promoted as a vehicle that will change literary reading, especially through its recovery of images, supposedly to be suppressed by print, and through the choice offered to the reader by links. However, the authors suggest, based on evidence from empirical studies of reading, that these aspects of hypertext may disrupt reading. According to their article, in a study of readers who read either a simulated literary hypertext or the same text in linear form, a range of significant differences was found: these suggest that hypertext discourages the absorbed and reflective mode that characterizes literary reading.

This is precisely the dilemma millennials are facing while engaging in endless searches through millions of hypertext documents. They do not seem to grasp anything at all, and pretend to know information just because it is stored (and could be found) in those links they make reference to at the convenience of their fingertips. Millennials would even dare to tell someone they have studied, reflected, or learned about something just because they have opened a few hyperlinks and know where to locate the information, except in their brains.

According to Miall and Dobson (2001), over the last ten years we have frequently heard the claim that hypertext offers a challenge to existing practices of reading. In particular, hypertext has been used to polarize differences between two kinds of reading: a constrained, linear form determined by the nature of printed text, and a de-centered, participatory form supposedly to be liberated by hypertext. The authors comment on Johnson-Eiola (1997) assertions that

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“the repressive effect of the book is based on its tangible appearance, as a recent commentator explains: the physical, stable presence of the text works to deny the intangible, psychological text the reader attempts to construct. As a result, books are machines for transmitting authority and disseminations of cultural capital. In contrast, the standard vision of hypertext is that it obviously creates empowered readers, ones who have more power relative both to the texts they read and to the authors of these texts.”

Examining the principles discussed by Miall and Dobson, and their reference to Johnson-Eiola, we cannot deny that millennials are far more “empowered” than 20th century learners when it comes to choices of what to read or how to read it. They can very well decide, “to link or not link” in order to understand or learn anything better. What is left to be seen is how much of this potential will be effective or productive for their lives. We can only wonder if this empowerment will automatically turn into an enriching educational/learning experience or not.

According to George Landow in his most recent book titled, Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization (2006), hypertext increases individual freedom because “users are entirely free to follow links wherever they please.” Landow’s widely acclaimed, Hypertext 2.0: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology (1997), was the first book to bring together the worlds of literary theory and computer technology. Landow was also one of the first scholars to explore the implications of giving readers instant, easy access to a virtual library of sources as well as unprecedented control of what and how they read.

This individual freedom “to follow links everywhere” is one distressing thought. What about if millennials, in their freedom, choose not to learn or acquire any worthy knowledge or skills at all?

To reflect further on this topic, I don’t even need to wander into critical theory. I can speak about it with personal convictions for I have learned how to live with the two millennials I have at home –my son and my daughter. Anecdotally, I once recall my own son telling me he didn’t need to learn anything about the contents of Homer’s Odyssey or the Iliad, since he could easily google their content and analise over thousands of hyperlinked texts and sources on the web. These readings were two of his reading assignments in his basic course in the College of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus. As he joyfully stated, this information was right before his fingertips and a few clicks away.

Needless to say, I pointed out to him that in the past, I had internalized those readings the same way I did with Don Quixote, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Othello, and many other literary works by reading, summarizing, or explaining them to someone else without opening any web page or hyperlinking my way to other texts. We discussed them in class and I just learned them, period…and now I feel more “empowered” by that fact.

The debate about millennials learning more or less with hyperlinked sources can go on and on without any clear winners on sight. For once, the hyper-linked millennials can claim they have bettered 20th century learners in terms of reading and writing more (and possibly faster) for they have the ability to hypertext and hyper-read whatever they want and at the speed they want. Yet, as Mialls and Dobson

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(2001) argued brilliantly, how much of this information are they actually internalizing or acquiring is yet to be known.

How much of this hyper-texted information is relevant, meaningful or useful to millennials is also yet to be discovered. As millennials keep coping with their reading/writing dilemma to link or not to link, one thing remains very accurate, what 20th century learners read and wrote was totally signiďŹ cant. They survived without hypertext!

References Englebart, D. (2016). Historic Legacy: The Doug Engelbart Archive. Retrieved from http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/ engelbart-archives.html Hypertext. (2016, November 5). Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypertext Johnson-Eiola, J. (1997). Nostalgic angels: Reinventing hypertext writing (Advances in discourse processes). Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers.

Jones, S. H. & Wright, M. E. (2010, February). The effects of a hypertext learning aid and cognitive style on performance in advanced ďŹ nancial accounting. Issues in Accounting Education, 25,(1), 35-58.

Landow, G. (2006) Hypertext 3.0 Critical theory and new media in an era of globalization. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press.

Landow, G. (1997) Hypertext 2.0. Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press.

Miall D.S. & Dobson, T. (2001). Reading hypertext and the experience of literature. Texas Digital Library, 2,(1).

Nelson, T. (2016). Famous Inventors: Ted Nelson. Retrieved from http://www.famousinventors.org/ted-nelson

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One Size DOES NOT Fit All: The Basics of Differentiating Instruction Dr. Cristina Guerra

We usually scoff when we look at pictures such as the one above. Most people recognize that individual differences are found everywhere around us: among animals, plants, and of course among human beings.

Each creature is unique. However, surprisingly, this evident truth is not necessarily applied in the field of education the way it should. Teachers struggle every day to cater to the needs and interests of their students. Educators ponder and wonder how they can reach and teach such a diverse student population.

Even though it is not a panacea, Differentiated Instruction could help them address this concern.

The notion of Differentiated Instruction is not new. Concern for attending to the needs of particular students is captured in writings about teaching in ancient Greece and Egypt, in descriptions of life in the one-room schoolhouse, and in every instance where instructional plans are adjusted to better meet the needs of an individual learner (Knowing and Responding, 2016, p. 5).

Effective differentiated instruction requires that educators take thoughtful and deliberate actions to address the particular needs of their students. Differentiated instruction allows teachers to see learning from many perspectives and provides countless, unexpected teachable moments that we may otherwise miss. (Knowing and Responding, 2016, p. 5) Let’s explore what Differentiated Instructions is, and IS NOT. We could start by saying that Differentiated Instruction is NOT: • Adding assignments to keep the students busy.

• All students doing the same thing.

• Writing an individual lesson plan for each student.

Image Retrieved from: https://www.google.com.pr/search?q=one+size+fits+all&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifvoefiejRAhV CYyYKHSuwBYkQ_AUICCgB&biw=1093&bih=490#imgrc=tJXF_Qg8-0uDHM%3A

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Differentiated Instruction is a frame of mind, and is described as a teaching philosophy based on the premise that teachers adapt instruction to students’ differences (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999, 2000, 2003) because certainly when we talk about education “One size does not fit all.”

Differentiated Instruction is not a particular instructional strategy. It is not a “recipe,” a formula, or a prescription either. Differentiated Instruction should be viewed instead as a way of thinking about and shaping the teaching and learning process. In other words, Differentiated Instruction is simply high-quality thoughtful teaching that builds on our best understanding of how students learn and what teachers can do to maximize each student’s learning (Tomlinson, 1995a, 1995b, 1999, 2000, 2003).

In other words, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson —perhaps the most prolific author who has written about this topic— “Differentiation is an organized, yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet the kids where they are and help them to achieve their maximum growth as learners” (Knowing and Responding, 2016, p. 7).

According to Tomlinson and Allan (2000), differentiation is based on the following premises and beliefs: • Human beings share common feelings and needs, and schools should understand and respect these commonalities.

• Individuals also differ significantly as learners. They have different interests, learning styles, intelligences, and needs.

• Each student is unique.

• All students can learn.

• Intelligence is not fixed. It is dynamic, plural rather than singular.

• Human capacity is malleable. The art of teaching is the art of maximizing the students’ capacities.

• Students are and should always be viewed as the center of the learning process.

• All students require respectful, engaging, and rigorous learning experiences.

• If the students are not learning, it is our responsibility as educators to determine how to increase their success in learning.

• Students and teachers are collaborators in learning.

Image retrieved from: http://littlesproutspeech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/one-size-does-not-fit-all-bulkin.jpg

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If we examine the picture below, we could understand that the opposite of differentiation is to ignore the particular differences among students, and require that in order to be fair, all students perform the same tasks both when teaching and assessing the students’ progress.

The picture illustrates the One size fits all teaching and assessment practices implemented in many classrooms. In contrast, according to Tomlinson, et al. (2003), effective Differentiated Instruction: • Requires that teachers employ a variety of assessment and teaching strategies that need to be tailor-made to cater to the students needs.

• Is proactive rather than reactive because teachers plan their lessons based on what they know about their students.

• Employs flexible use of small teaching-learning groups in the classroom.

• Varies the materials used by individuals and small groups of students in the classroom.

• Uses variable pacing as a means of addressing learner needs.

• Is knowledge centered.

• Above all, is learner centered.

I hope that at this point, after reading the first pages of my article you are already convinced of the importance of differentiating instruction. I also assume that you must be asking yourself, Where do I start? What is the first step? To answer these questions, we must first reiterate that Differentiated Instruction is NOT a recipe and is not a method either. Consequently, there are no steps as such that need to be followed in a fixed sequence. Instead, it would be more accurate to describe Differentiated Instruction as a continuous process that requires that we first get to know our students before planning any differentiated responses.

That is, Differentiated Instruction is a cyclical process of getting to know the learner and responding by Image retrieved from: https://www.google.com.pr/search?q=one+size+fits+all&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifvoefiejRAhVC YyYKHSuwBYkQ_AUICCgB&biw=1093&bih=490#tbm=isch&q=one+size+fits+all+differentiation&imgrc=eXo133R4Ui1r8M%3A

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differentiating. As we continue to learn more about the learner, we respond by differentiating instruction with increased precision and effectiveness. Please see the diagram above (adapted from, (Knowing and Responding, 2016, p. 5).

Now that we have discussed some basic notions about differentiation, I propose that we continue to explore even further how this cyclical process is implemented in the classroom. According to Hobgood (nd), contemporary definitions of Differentiated Instruction typically reference three areas where differentiation can occur: • Process: It is the combination of activities and input from the teacher that engage the learner in the content. In other words, Process refers to the ways we teachers help students learn—through instruction and assessment.

• Content: It is the information that must be learned. It refers to the topics, the entry point, the readings, skills, and standards, among many other aspects.

• Product: It is the ways students demonstrate their learning—through assessment and evaluation (e.g., creating a product from a choice board, doing an oral or written presentation) Hobgood (nd) indicates that there is a fourth area where differentiation can and should occur: the Learning Environment. This refers to the conditions for learning (e.g., quiet or busy, alone or with others).

The following quote from The Basics of Differentiated Instruction (2003) summarizes the most important suggestions posed by Carol Ann Tomlinson in the classic, How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (1995a). These practical ideas can certainly help us answer the question, How can I implement differentiation in my classroom?

1. Are you clear on what you want the student to a. Know (facts, information), b. Understand (principles, generalizations, ideas), and c. Be able to do as a result of this/these learning experience(s)?

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2. In deciding on content, have you thought about and selected a. Alternate sources/resources, b. Varied support systems (reading buddies, tape recordings, digests, direct instruction groups, organizers, extenders), and c. Varied pacing plans?

3. Have you made plans to pre-assess student readiness so you can make appropriate content or activity assignments? Does the pre-assessment give a picture of understanding and skill versus facts only? Does the pre-assessment focus squarely on items in number one above?

4. As you assign students to groups or tasks, have you made certain that a. All of them call for high-level thinking? b. All of them appear to be of about equal interest to your learners? c. If readiness-based, they vary along the continuum of the equalizer? d. If interest based, students have choices to make about how to apply skills and understandings or how to express them? e. There are opportunities for varied modes of learning to accommodate varied learning proďŹ les? g. Each activity focuses squarely on one (or a very few) key concepts and generalizations? i. Each activity requires all students to make sense of (own) the key concept(s)/ generalization(s)? j. Student choice is maximized within teacher-generated parameters needed for focus and growth? k. Appropriate skills have been integrated into the activity requirements? l. Expectations for high-quality task completion are clearly delineated for students? m. You have a plan for gathering ongoing assessment data from the activity? n. You have a plan/mechanism for bringing closure and clarity to the tasks?

5. When creating assignments for differentiated products, have you made certain that a. They vary along the continuum of the equalizer-based student readiness? b. They require all students to use the key concepts, generalizations, ideas, and skills to solve problems, extend understandings, and create meaningful products? c. They maximize student choice options within parameters necessary to demonstrate essential understandings and skills? d. They include a core of clearly delineated and appropriately challenging expectations for

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the content of the product (what understandings and skills it must demonstrate, what sorts of resources must be used, etc.), processes involved in production (planning, goal setting, time line use, use of a process log, self-evaluation, drafts/stages, etc.), and production requirements for the product (what will constitute an effective video or speech or proposal or photo essay, etc.)? e. They provide for additional criteria for success to be added by the student, and by the teacher for individual students? f. There are plans for formative evaluation and modification of the product? g. There are plans for summative evaluation by the teacher, student, peers, and others (e.g., parents, real audience) based on the product criteria? h. You have involved or informed parents as appropriate?

To conclude this exposition, I would like to share with you some final thoughts and pointers. First of all, remember that you don’t have to address all these questions at once. Take baby steps. Organize yourself.

For example, address the first two or three (not ALL) questions or issues as you plan your next lesson.

Second, do not try to address all four areas of differentiation (Content, Process, Product, Learning Environment) at once either. Choose one or two areas. Remember practice makes perfect. Little by little you will become more confident…Bear in mind that,

“Teaching is not a one-way street. (...) Students are our partners in education... . No one should expect us to know how to differentiate instruction and assessment for all students every day. We’ll get closer to the ideal when we realize that good solutions often come from the collective wisdom of both teachers and students.”

(Wormeli, 2007, p. 79)

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References Hobgood, B. (nd). Reaching every learner: Differentiating instruction in theory and practice. Retrieved from: http://www.learnnc.org/ lp/editions/every-learner/6778 Ontario MInistry of Education, Student Achivement Division. (2016) Knowing and responding to learners: A differentiated instruction educator’s guide. Retrieved from: http://www.edugames.ca/resourcesDI/EducatorsPackages/DIEducatorsPackage_2016/DI_ EducatorsGuide_AODA.pdf.

The basics of differentiated instruction. Unpublished paper presented at the 2003 ASCD Summer Conference on Differentiated Instruction, Chicago, Illinois Tomlinson, C. A. (1995a). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability class rooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1995b). Deciding to differentiate instruction in middle school: One school’s journey. Gifted Child Quarterly, 3(9), 77-87.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Tomlinson, C. A. & Allan, S. (2000). Leadership for differentiating schools and classrooms. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Reconcilable differences? Standards-based teaching and differentiation. Educational Leadership, 58(4), 6-11.

Tomlinson, C. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Tomlinson, C.; Brighton, C.; Hertberg, H.; Callahan, C.; Moon, T.; Brimijoin, K.; Conover, L & Reynolds, T. (2003) Differentiating instruction in response to student readiness, interest, and learning profile in academically diverse classrooms: A review of literature.

Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 27(23), 119–145.

Wormeli, R. (2007). Differentiation: From planning to practice, grades 6-12. Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.

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Why Teaching Digital Citizenship Matters Rosemary Morales Urbina, Ed. D. According to the latest survey, 65% of US teens (and I imagine teens in Puerto Rico as well) use Facebook daily, stating a preference for Facebook than any other social network, including Snapchat and Instagram.

The survey also revealed that the amount of time spent on Facebook, up from 59%, has risen among 13-18 year olds (McCarthy, 2017). Another study published in May 2013 showed that teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the past. It found that 64% of teenagers with Twitter accounts were aware that their tweets were public, 24% said their accounts were protected, and 12% had no idea whether their tweets were public or not (Robus, 2013). According to McGuire (in Robus, 2013), the football head coach at Big Horn High School in Wyoming, there is no use in trying to stop adolescents from using social networks, since “it’s… here to stay. …just educate them…and hope they make good decisions” (para. 8). Robert Laird, the Wyoming High School Activities Association Commissioner stated he was unaware of a specific social media policy, but that he expected for schools to have at least a policy agreement or code of conduct that could deal with a potential cyber issue.

I agree with Laird absolutely. There should be guidelines for teachers to communicate with students about digital citizenship, especially since millions of people around the world communicate with each other on the Web more than any other means today.

Defining digital citizenship means that we know the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use. To practice digital citizenship, albeit, we must know who a digital citizen is.

It is “a person who develops the skills and knowledge to effectively use the Internet and other digital technology, especially in order to participate responsibly in social and civic activities” (“Digital citizen”, 2017). This means that people like you and me; students of all ages, parents, and young and old alike can become responsible digital citizens.

Pierce (2014) agrees with Ribble (2017) who outlines nine elements that everyone who uses technology in any form should be aware of.

1. Digital Access Working toward equal digital rights and supporting electronic access is the starting point of Digital Citizenship. Helping to provide and expand access to technology should be the goal of all digital citizens.

To become productive citizens, we need to be committed to make sure that no one is denied digital access.

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2. Digital Commerce Legitimate and legal exchanges are occurring, but the buyer or seller needs to be aware of the issues associated with it. Internet purchases of toys, clothing, cars, food, technological equipment, etc. have become commonplace to many users. At the same time, an equal amount of goods and services, which are in conflict with the laws, or morals of some countries are surfacing (which might include activities such as illegal downloading, pornography, and gambling). Users need to learn about how to be effective consumers in a new digital economy.

3. Digital Communication In the 21st century, communication options have exploded to offer a wide variety of choices (e.g., e-mail, mobile phones, instant messaging). People are able to keep in constant communication with anyone else, anywhere, and anytime. Unfortunately, many users have not been taught how to make appropriate decisions when faced with so many different digital communication options.

4. Digital Literacy While schools have made great progress in the area of technology infusion, much remains to be done.

A renewed focus must be made on what technologies must be taught as well as how they should be used, such as videoconferencing, and online sharing spaces, such as wikis. In addition, workers in many different occupations need immediate information (just-in-time information). This process requires sophisticated searching and processing skills, that is, information literacy. As new technologies emerge, learners need to learn how to use that technology quickly and appropriately.

5. Digital Etiquette Technology users often see this area as one of the most pressing problems when dealing with Digital Citizenship. We recognize inappropriate behavior when we see it, but before people use technology they do not learn digital etiquette or appropriate conduct. Often rules and regulations are created or the technology is simply banned to stop inappropriate use. It is not enough to create rules and policy, we must teach everyone to become responsible digital citizens in this new society.

6. Digital Law Digital law deals with the ethics of technology within a society. Unethical use manifests itself in the form of theft or crime. Ethical use manifests itself in the form of abiding by the laws of society. These laws apply to anyone who works or plays online. Users need to understand that stealing or causing damage to other people’s work, identity, or property online is a crime. This includes hacking into others information, downloading illegal music, plagiarizing, creating destructive worms, viruses or creating Trojan Horses, sending spam, or stealing anyone’s identify or property.

7. Digital Rights and Responsibilities There is a basic set of rights extended to every digital citizen. Everyone has the right to privacy, free speech, etc., but basic digital rights must be addressed, discussed, and understood in the digital world.

With these rights also come responsibilities as well. Users must help define how the technology is to be used in an appropriate manner. In a digital society these two areas must work together for everyone to be productive.

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8. Digital Health and Wellness Eye safety, repetitive stress syndrome, and sound ergonomic practices are issues that need to be addressed in a new technological world. Beyond the physical issues are those of the psychological issues that are becoming more prevalent, such as Internet addiction. Users need to be taught that there are inherent dangers of technology.

9. Digital Security (self-protection) In any society, there are individuals who steal, deface, or disrupt other people. The same is true for the digital community. If we provide some level of protection for our homes, the same must be true for digital security. We need to have virus protection, backups of data, and surge control of our equipment.

As responsible citizens, we must protect our information from outside forces that might cause disruption or harm (pp. 1-2).

These elements or principles Ribble (2017) poses should make us more conscious about digital citizenship.

However, a recent study as cited in Erb (2015), states that one half of middle and high school students admit to social media abuse, such as bullying schoolmates, spreading rumors, and pressuring others to send sexual texts or pictures, in addition to stalking their partners. Only 37% of students surveyed affirmed that their parents supervised their online practices. Mrs. Kernsmith, (in Erb, 2015), observes that parents are most likely missing opportunities to teach their children appropriate conduct in social networking. They are also missing valuable time to construct healthy open relationships with their own children and to discuss and monitor their social media habits and friends. Kameon Franklin, a senior at the Detroit School of Arts, said this about online abuse, “I think that parents would be surprised to know how deep and serious it is” (Erb, 2015, para. 20). She added that more conversation with adults at school and more communication between parents and children would help.

So when do we start? According to Kuropatwa (2014), “even our youngest students need digital citizenship skills.” Pre-school and primary grade students who are handling technological tools without any guidance from parents and teachers need direction and support as they use online sources in this digital world. Therefore, it seems prudent to prepare students at an early age. Kuropatwa asserts that first graders who watch YouTube videos and other sites at home should be given the tools they need in school for safe traveling through the Internet. Parents want support from teachers as to what limits are appropriate for their children.

There are three main points Kuropatwa (2014) promotes with her first grade students in the classroom.

1. Be safe includes getting parents’ permission to open their children’s own blog in class, and making sure that parents understand and are involved with what is going on. Nothing is posted without the teacher’s approval. A student’s name and picture are never matched, and last but not least, a student’s last name is never posted as well. http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/social-media-sites-may-be-fined-over-cyber-bullying-20140917-10ii79.html

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2. Be respectful means being kind to one another, such as leaving messages that they would like to receive themselves. The teacher monitors all postings and talks to students who have written an unkind word or offended another student. She turns this situation into a learning opportunity to discuss with the class.

3. Be a learner involves teaching students that “the Internet is a place to learn.” Connecting with other classrooms and visiting other countries around the world are favorable options, but talking about sites that the Internet has taken the student inadvertently, is an opportunity to learn about not clicking on links that are unknown.

Hurst (2015) and Curatola (2015) posit that digital citizenship should also begin at an early age and from many different perspectives, even if it is challenging. They both present teachers four tips that will aid students become great digital citizens. The first three tips are as follows: 1. Begin early training with digital citizenship with younger children in elementary school, and sooner with secondary school students, if they have not been exposed.

2. Learn and share with colleagues about digital citizenship, whether they are interested in it or not. By doing so, your colleagues will increase the extent and detail of what to teach students.

3. Lastly, stay informed of the best practices of teaching digital citizenship, but more importantly, know the latest behaviors of technology use in your students (pp. 1-2).

tips presented work.

Hurst (2015) recommends four tools that will allow all teachers to create lessons and units to make the

1. Google has joined with iKeepSafe to develop a series of lessons that have students center on the validity of online resources, monitor their digital footprint, and develop the know-how to protect themselves against scams. Digital footprint means one’s unique set of digital activities, actions, and communications that leave a data trace on the Internet or on a computer or other digital device and can identify the particular user or device (“Digital footprint”, 2017).

YouTube has a couple of videos that will help you manage iKeepSafe in the classroom.

2. Similarly, Common Sense Education and Remind also partnered to create a weeklong unit to teach the importance of safe digital communication and to introduce teachers, students, and parents to Remind’s new tool, Chat. Chat will certainly be helpful to classroom communication as well as the well-structured, age-specific units on digital citizenship.

3. For elementary school children in grades 4 through 8, InCtrl from Cable Impacts holds lessons that include videos, articles, and activities that teach digital citizenship concepts.

4. Finally, there is Digizen.org with a wealth of resources for both students and parents that deal with safe social networking and protecting your students from cyberbullying. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/04/ten-digital-safety-commandments-students

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The most important word Hurst ends with and reminds of us is “protection” while teaching students digital citizenship as they navigate online to ensure that they use the World Wide Web in entertaining, safe, and productive ways.

Another website to protect children who use technology and the Internet is Think Before You Link (Layton, 2014). Produced by Discovery Education and Intel Security, it is an online course for students from grades three to eight, which focuses on cyber safety, online bullying, and Internet ethics.

The Tech Room in Christy Crawford’s (2016) classroom boasts Ten Commandments for Digital Safety that all her students must follow: 1. Thou shalt not give anyone private information on the Web without parental permission, especially when forms suddenly appear online for more information.

2. Thou shalt not give anyone private information (even if requested from a friend) without parental permission.

3. Thou shalt report inappropriate behavior to the Kik Bot (site moderator!) and to parents about initial or repeated instances of harassment. Kik is the mobile chat application popular with teenagers and Chat bots are computer programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence. They can transform the way you interact with the Internet from a series of self-initiated tasks to a quasi-conversation (theguardian.com, 2016) 4. Thou shalt not become a part of the problem: Thou shalt be the solution. What this means is that instead of filming or posting a fight, the student should call or get hold of an adult for help.

5. Thou shalt not steal. Plagiarism is a crime! Give credit to the source of your information.

6. Thou shalt not meet anyone thou has just met online without adult permission and supervision. This is pretty clear.

7. Thou shalt inform others that thou prefers to control thy image. Since colleges and employers can scan the Web for your digital footprint, tell friends not to tag you on social networks, if you have not given permission.

8. Thou does not want to post something thou will regret later. Whatever is posted on the Internet stays there forever and travels around the world, even if it does not seem likely.

9. Thou shalt go outside once in a while! Get some fresh air. Experts claim that too much screen time can negatively change the structure and function of your brain.

10. Thou must pause. This means taking time to reflect upon the former nine commandments before texting or posting anything and discuss them with family and friends (pp. 2-4).

Not all is dangerous or so serious, however, when students are playing games or searching the Internet.

Several educators interested in the field of technology see that the Internet can be very rewarding for students; especially in helping them learn a concept, skills, or new information.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2015/04/12/kids-social-media-abuse/25685317/

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Conforming to Schaffhauser (2014), gaming offers the excitement of competition and a transparent promise of rewards for the goals reached. She provides five games that she feels teach skills better than textbooks and prepare students to win in the real world. She affirms that, “Because games also immerse students in a world outside their daily experience, game-based pedagogy can help students learn skills they could never grasp by reading a textbook” (para. 2). Schaffhauser states that in the Project Speak Up survey in 2013, only a third of elementary school teachers reported using games in their classroom. Teachers gave two reasons for using them: It increased student engagement in learning (79%) and provided a way for teachers to address different learning styles in the classroom by 72%.

Lucien Vattel, CEO of GameDesk, a non-profit organization that develops learning games and gamebased curriculum, asserts that connecting physical experiences with learning is fundamental in teaching the science of plate tectonics, for example (Schaffhauser, 2014). The difficulty with a textbook is that it has only two dimensions to explain a “hyper-dimensional 3D phenomenon… since it happens with movement. By using a game environment with simulations such as GameDesk’s Plate Tectonics, students can experience what happens when the earth plates move” (para. 3). He added that the experience of learning is codified in the students’ brains as opposed to reading something or when it is received through lecture or verbal or visual representation. Not even touch screens work in this science unit, because a screen has a 2D surface, while in a 3D space, students can move their hands any which way and that is how 3D geological formation actually exists, declares Vattel.

Another fan of gaming is Kristin Paolillo, a teacher in East Haven, Connecticut, since it teaches “good old American competitiveness” (Schaffhauser, 2014). She had the opportunity to pilot the use of the game, Amplify, with tablets obtained through a pilot study. She indicates that it put students on their toes, especially when they competed against a clock or other classmates, even with students who had no competitive spirit. She believes that teamwork and collaboration are “fashionable 21st century soft skills” that help once you have the job accomplished, but that the fighting spirit sensation is what helps you reach your goals. “And if nobody has instilled that in you, you’re never going to get where you want to be, ” affirms Paolillo (para. 7).

Paolillo admits that teaching students collaborative skills is essential, but that sometimes it is not effective if not all students put forth their best efforts (Schaffhauser, 2014). She recommends the game, Classcraft, a freemium online role-playing game that works as an extra layer on top of existing curriculum. Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product or service (typically a digital offering or application such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but money (premium) is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods (“Freemium”, 2017). Freemium is a combination of the words “free” and “premium.”

How does it work? Free-to-play has been a very successful revenue model. The basic freemium application gives away its core functionality for free and offers upgrades to add certain features. In its most simple form, this is like combining the “lite” version of an app with the premium version features available for a price (nations, 2017).

Going back to Classcraft, students play as “mages,” “warriors,” and “healers” with unique powers, each one requiring the help of others to succeed. Because a team cannot succeed without the help of each member, they all pitch in so that their team wins. For Paolillo that is true collaboration (Schaffhauser, 2014).

The director of professional development for the non-profit, Institute of Play, is Rebecca Rufo-Tepper’s favorite game (Schaffhauser, 2014). It helps to analyze a text or how she calls it, “systems thinking,” that leads students to understand the relationships within and among components. In the first round of play, students create a story that has a character, setting, and conflict. In the second round, students return

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to the story and add metaphors, similes, and make revisions. By the final round, they have a solid draft of the story. More importantly is that the game asks students to express how having the character they chose in that setting affects the conflict that occurred. This exercise will help students see the story as a system instead of just identifying the plot and setting of a story.

The social studies teacher from Valleyview Middle, Matt Farber, covers the concept of writing the Constitution of the United States differently (Schaffhauser, 2014). He has small groups of students in each of his classes rewrite the school’s student handbook and places it on Edmodo or Google Drive.

Throughout the day, the ensuing classes add or detract what has been written previously by other students. By the end of the day, the project has changed immensely, with incensed and happy students simultaneously with the work accomplished. Students, then, have to ratify the document by a two/thirds vote just like the Constitution. Some complain that they did not get to vote because they were absent.

Farber replies if you are absent on Election Day, you don’t get to vote either. This lesson teaches students how government works and how the Bill of Rights and other documents become law.

Other strategies that support technology education equity solutions is provided by Dillon (2015), who serves as the director of technology and innovation in the Affton School District in St. Louis. Below are seven ideas to get you started: 1. Tools for citizenship. Shaping students into responsible citizens is central to the role of education. As more and more of our lives are lived in digital spaces, it is essential for educators to use the technology tools available to support this work. We are responsible in developing our students to become knowledgeable digital citizens.

2. Amplify student voice. When students do not have voice at school they often have illprepared voice in the streets. Technology tools coupled with a culture of create, make and design can support this work. Students need to voice their opinions and feelings in a safe cyber environment in our schools.

3. Know your message. Students with quality communication and presentation skills are more college and career ready. Quality teaching and learning about presenting and displaying ideas through presentation can support these skills. Teaching students excellent vocabulary usage, and grammar and writing skills will help them become effective communicators.

4. Virtual field trips. Closing the experience gap is a huge step to growing education equity.

One way that schools are doing this is through growing opportunities through virtual field trips. Nowadays teachers can take students to visit any museum, historical site, or country to develop tolerance and appreciate the diversity of the peoples around the world.

5. Thin classroom walls. Community-based learning allows students the opportunity to have a sense of place. Technology allows this learning to happen without pause. Students taking their devices into the community can support healing and understanding. Students can be taught to analyze a community dilemma or successful project through thoughtful knowledge and ideas based on personal observation and social interaction.

6.

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Always at school. Many students in high-poverty, low-income areas struggle to maintain high attendance for a number of reasons. Twenty-four-hour access to high-quality devices can limit the loss of instructional time and continue the learning momentum. Access to technology in all its forms is an undeniable right for all students in order to reduce the education gap between wealthy and needy students.

7. Virtual connections. Virtual mentorships enable us to surround our students in need with as many caring adults as a possible. Thin classrooms walls allow experts to make meaningful connections with kids. Students need support from conscientious adults who are willing to guide them solve problems, make wise decisions, and become valuable citizens in their country.

Since the Internet and social networking is here to stay, every school, whether public or private, should have guidelines and access to the Internet and technological support for all students. The government, private industry, and educational stakeholders should make this a priority so that students everywhere, including Puerto Rico, becomes capable digital citizens with the inalienable right to imagine, explore, discover, adapt, and create safely in the information space that is the World Wide Web.

References Berkowitz, J. & Myers, A. (2015, November 12). Teaching students cyber ethics. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/ leadership_360/2015/11/teaching_students_cyber_ethics.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news3 Chat. Retrieved from https://www.remind.com/chat Crawford, C. (2016, April 6). Ten digital safety commandments for students. Retrieved from http://www. scholstic.com/teachers/ top-teaching/2016/04/ten-digital safety-commandments-students Curatola-Knowles, C. N. (2015, February 16). 4 fresh ideas for teaching digital citizenship sooner. Retrieved from http://www. eschoolnews.com/2015/02/16/digital citizenship-young-229/2/ Digital Citizen. (2017). In Dicctionary.com Retrieved February 2017, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/digital-citizen Digital Footprint. (2017). In Dicctionary.com Retrieved February 2017, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/digital-footprint Digizen. http://www.digizen.org/ Dillon, R. (2015, November 3). Tech tip: 7 ways technology can support education equity solutions. Retrieved from http://smartblogs. com/education/2015/11/03/tech-tip-7-ways-technology-can-support-education-equity-solutions/?utm_source=brief Erb, R. (2015, April 14). Study: Half of kids admit to hurtful social networking. Retrieved from http://www.freep.com/story/news/ health/2015/04/12/kids-social-media-abuse/25685317/ Freemium. (2017). In Wikpedia.com. Retrieved February 2017, from https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium Hurst, C. (2015, August 4). 8 tips and tools for teaching digital citizenship. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/ Articles/2015/08/04/8-Tips-and-Tools-for-Teaching-Digital-Citizenship.aspx?Page=2 iKeepsafe.org. Retrieved from https://ikeepsafe.org/educators_old/more/google/ Kuropatwa, D. (2014, June 26). Even our youngest need digital citizenship skills. Retrieved from https://plpnetwork. com/2014/06/26/primary-kids-digital-citizenship-skills/ Layton, L. (2014, November 16). ‘Think Before You Link” promotes student cybersafety. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost. com/local/education/think-before-you-link-promotes-student-cyber-safety/2014/11/12/75716872-6aa7-11e4-9fb4a622dae742a2_story.html?utm_term=.43c53141c42e McCarthy, A. (2017, January 10). Survey finds US teens upped daily Facebook usage in 2016. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer. com/Article/Survey-Finds-US-Teens-Upped-Daily-Facebook-Usage-2016/1015053 Nations, D. (2017), March (2017). Freemium. Livewire.com Retrieved from https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-freemium-1994347 Pierce, D. (2015, September 24). The nine essential elements of digital citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.eschoolnews. com/2015/09/24/digital-citizenship-244/

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Ribble, M. (2017). Nine elements. Retrieved from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html Robus, C. (2013, September 12). Social media police. Retrieved from http://trib.com/sports/high-school/wyoming-high-schoolcoaches-ofďŹ cials-mind-players-social-media-status/article_25c14a4f-2776-5fe7-aee5-3aa7842a8f85.html Schaffhauser, D. (2014, November 5). 5 Skills that games teach better than textbooks. Retrieved from https://thejournal.com/ Articles/2014/11/05/5-Skills-That-Games-Teach-Better-Than-Textbooks.aspx?Page=1 Think Before You Link. Retrieved from https://gtm-media-3.discoveryeducation.com/v3.3/CEP/CyberSafety_student/index. html#/ Wong, J. C. (2016, April 6). What is a chat bot, and should I be using one? Theguardian.com. Retrieved from https://wwww. theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/06/what-is-chat-bot-kik-bot-shop-messaging-plattaform

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Encouraging our English Teachers to Integrate Technology and Art into Their Classroom Prof. Marielis Sexto

A

A T

There has been an expansion of new technologies in the past years. As we read through the literature, we can observe that there are studies that have supported the integration of technology for the benefit of English Language Learners (ELLs) (Medclaf, 2006; Sun & Chang, 2012). The most important conclusion from those studies asserted that technology was a great tool for teaching and that it had a lot of potential.

According to Sun and Chang (2012), integrating technology in language classrooms helped develop writing skills and fostered synthesizing skills. In Medclaf’s (2006) study with second graders, students showed improvement in their writing skills.

Integrating the arts into our teaching has also proven to be quite positive. Studies such as those of Chicola and Smith (2005) and Nordlund (2006) support a curriculum where art is a must. In Chicola’s (2005) study, we learned that creating art works enhanced learning and improved students’ fulfillment.

According to Nordlund (2006), arts integration into the curriculum had several benefits among students, such as expanded ways of knowing, creativity, and emotional intelligence.

As one continues to read about educational technologies and the arts, more information encouraging their use comes up. For example, threaded discussions have influenced students’ writing skills, increased motivation, and have allowed them to build their own literate identity through social interaction (Grisham & Wolsey, 2007). Described threaded discussions have encouraged students to keep writing and reading.

The No Child Left Behind Act includes Grants for Education Technology in an effort to promote schools to use technology to advance academic progress.

Awareness about this topic is based on my personal experience in teaching English at primary levels.

Integrating modern technologies and the arts was very motivational for my students. Students seemed happier and more engaged. So when last year, Dr. Elsie Candelaria approached me to be part of the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus summer program, I delightfully accepted, because the theme was one I could solidly identify with. The title of the program is self-explanatory, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills through Art and Technology.

My participation in the program was mainly related to the arts and my wonderful colleagues were more into the technological area. The 25 participating English teachers were highly engaged and happy, a resemblance shared in my mind with past students. Once the program concluded, these motivated

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teachers were now on the quest of employing the learned skills and techniques into their classrooms. The results so far with their students have been formidable. Without a doubt, many more wonderful teaching experiences will indeed occur further on.

When we observe a correlation between what happens in our classroom, and what the literature (Lee, 2006) says about how positive it is to use technology in our schools, there is no doubt that some reflection has to occur. My final thought on this chosen topic is that we should not discard any technique or method just because we have negative or preconceived ideas about them. Let us give arts and technology a chance in our teaching of English as a second language. The appropriate approach in this case would be to make a balance among these two areas and our regular teaching methods.

As John Steinbeck once said, “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist… Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

References Chicola, N. A., & Smith, B. J. (2005). Integrating Visual Arts into Instruction. International Journal of Learning, 12(5).

Grisham, D.L., & Wolsey, T.D. (2007). Adolescents and the new literacies: Writing engagement. Action in Teacher Education, 29(2), 29-38.

Lee, R. (2006). Effective learning outcomes of ESL elementary and secondary school students utilizing educational technology infused with constructivist pedagogy. Journal of Instructional Media, 33(1), 87-92. Retrieved from http:// vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com Medcalf, N.A. (2006). Connecting pre-service teachers with students using email to build skills for teaching writing. Journal of Reading Education, 31(2), 13-19.

Nordlund, C. Y. (2006). Art experiences in Waldorf education: Graduates’ meaning making reflections making (Doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri—Columbia).

Sun, Y., & Chang, Y. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning and Technology, 16 (1), 43-61.

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L E S S O N

P L A N S

L E S S O N

P L A N S

PBL: Let Me Fly Free World Music Tour Annette Muñiz Andújar Introduction: Our Mission is Clear Learning has become one of the most stressful yet most rewarding experiences a person could ever have.

It has been defined as the act of acquiring something new or a modification of something that already exists, such as knowledge, behavior, skills, and values.

There have been three basic learning styles: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Teachers of today who were students years ago can relate to the idea that learning was based in a vacuum. It was an experience in which a teacher spilled their knowledge and the student absorbed everything that was spilled around them, which left a short amount of space for initiative and creativity.

Today we can recall that teaching has suffered a great transformation and surely it has not ended. The Project, Professional Development for Teachers of English to Diverse Learners: Strategies for Integrating Art and Technology, has enlightened my life as a teacher. A variety of situations, such as a lack of materials, a wide variety of students with multiple intelligences, or on the other hand, with multiple needs, all placed in one same place like if we teachers could spoon-feed all our kids with the same food, has made them lacking interest in learning. People really think that a marker or a book can compete with the marvelous world they jump into when they open one of their techno gadgets. This new world activates their personal genie in a bottle. It provides them with all the answers to their questions in seconds. This only results in making one suffer the syndrome of “Burn Out”. The competition is really hard.

This proposal has provided me with several new ideas that I can surely use to engage my students to learn a second language. I now understand that we must dominate the same 21st century skills as our students are expected to learn. We must help our kids obtain and develop these skills if we really want to maintain their interest in the classroom. Our students know they love to do things that engage them technologically, but sometimes they just don’t know how to use it for their academic growth. Our mission now is clear; we need to become their guide. As John Dewey says, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”

This school year has been a great challenge. Students are really low proficient in English, lack interest, and most believe that to learn English you must move to the States. Some of them do not even know why they should learn another language besides their vernacular. This motivated me to emerge into the new framework for this 21 century, which takes me into critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, media, technology, and life. I’m looking forward to seeing my students solve life and their problems. We have done several different activities and applied different techniques in class. The one that I like the most is the strategy of Problem Based Learning (PBL).

My 11th grade class consists of approximately twenty-two students per group. The students were presented with the strategy and oriented in their responsibilities with their team. They also were oriented

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on the time they would have to investigate, the time they would have to create their final product and make their presentation.

Eleventh Grade - Puerto Rico Common Core Standards Students worked with the following Standards from the Puerto Rico Common Core: • Listening 11.L1 d. Listen and respond to synthesize, explain, describe, support, and discuss information; answer and formulate. Closed and open-ended questions; listen to, classify, and prioritize information.

• Speaking 11.S.2. Respond orally through closed and open-ended questions to real life situations.

• Listen, discuss, and respond to complex instructions and information.

• Synthesize, analyze, and debate information, justifying • Answers with details from texts, self, and the world.

• Critically analyze closed and open-ended questions and answer with increasing knowledge.

11.S.6 Plan and deliver a variety of oral presentations and reports on social, academic, college, and career topics that present evidence and facts to support ideas using growing understanding of formal and informal registers.

• Reading 11.R.1 Evaluate, analyze, research/synthesize, and document inferences and conclusions drawn from in-depth critical reading of appropriate texts and viewing of multimedia. Examine ideas, increasingly complex phenomena, processes, genre, and relationships within and across texts. Recognize fact vs. opinion and fiction vs. nonfiction as well as facts/supporting details from the texts.

11.R.2 L. Determine a theme or main idea of a literary text and analyze in detail its development, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide a subjective summary of the text.

I. Determine a main idea of an informational text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

11.R.10 Read and comprehend a variety of culturally relevant literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, and informational texts (e.g., history/social studies, science, and technical texts) of appropriate grade level.

• Writing W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of appropriate grade level content, using valid reasoning and sufficient evidence.

• Express, clarify, and defend viewpoints and opinions, be able to soften statements or justify arguments with support of the thesis statement and claims.

11.W.5 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

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11.W.7 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

11.LA.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. a)

Use punctuation marks correctly.

b)

Spell correctly

PBL: Let Me Fly Free World Music Tour Essential question: What can we as individuals of this generation do to eliminate slavery?

Cross-curriculum: History, Math, Geography, Arts • First Week • Explore prior knowledge on the concepts, Human Trafficking and Slavery.

• Define Human Trafficking and Slavery.

• Identify if there is any similarity or difference between the concepts of Human Trafficking and Slavery using a graphic organizer.

• Discuss a brief special report from CNN (https://youtu.be/3vWvYmNBFEM) on Human Trafficking today using a series of questions to guide through the oral discussion.

• Discuss the project’s instructions; divide the class into equal groups and present the responsibilities of the leader, recorder, time-keeper, material manager, speaker, and helpers.

• Second Week • Identify whom Abraham Lincoln and what the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States were.

• State what the Constitution of the United States and the Human Rights document are and what they mean for each person.

• Watch the movie, Abraham Lincoln, 2012, by Steven Spielberg.

• Identify each day the elements and important details that happen in the movie regarding the 13th Amendment using four different graphic organizers.

• Third and Forth Week • The project starts. The students will work drawing a time-line to complete their project according to the instructions provided.

• Venn Diagram: Define Human Trafficking and Slavery and discover similarities and differences.

Reach a conclusion.

• The Internet Resource document will be created as each student investigates using a series of webpages.

• The Universal Human Declaration document will be used to research two articles that talk about the right of not being a slave.

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• Jot down each day what has been done.

• Fact and Opinion: Students will research newspaper articles based on slavery today.

They will search online, determine the facts, and develop their opinion about slavery.

• Paraphrase the 13th Amendment.

• Songs of Slavery: Students will read and analyze what the songs meant for slaves.

• Questions: Explain what Abraham Lincoln did to eliminate slavery in his time.

What did the President of the US, Barack Obama, do to help eliminate slavery?

• Develop a possible solution to the problem of Human Trafficking today.

• Investigate anti-Human Trafficking organizations today that fight to defend and protect people who have been a slave. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ organizations_that_combat_human_trafficking) • Let’s plan the tour. Students will investigate and determine three countries from three different continents around the world where they would like to have their concerts.

• Best concert places around the world: Students will investigate the coliseums or arenas in the countries selected and present their advantages. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_music_venues) • Global map: Students will draw a concert route on the map.

• Song or Poem: Students will create a song, poem, or speech that will present a summary of what they have discovered. This will be placed in the video they have to create of the concerts.

• Concert Tickets: Create a ticket for the concert. Calculate the percentage of the money raised that will be given to the foundation against human trafficking that was selected.

• Coliseum: Calculate the amount of seats, the cost, and the percentage of the money raised that will be given to the foundation.

• Fifth Week • Students will have this time to create a video of a future world tour concert. They will present the coliseums, the singers (select three singers presented by the members in their oral presentation in the first week). During the video, the song, poem, or speech has to be presented. The video is an advertisement to sell the concerts.

• Behind the Scenes will be a presentation students will create that will explain how they created this video. They may include bloopers.

• Sixth Week • Students will present.

• Students will reflect on their project.

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They will present their experience.

Copy with evidence of PBL: LET ME FLY FREE WORLD MUSICAL TOUR

Team Members

Team Members TEAM CONTRACT INSTRUCTIONS:

• This project will be completed more or less in 10 days in class. Then the teacher will provide one more week

out of class to record or complete anything related to the oral presentation. The teacher will have at least two computers with Internet to help the groups if anyone has problem with their cellphones. You have complete permission to search online to complete your work. PAPERS HAVE A NUMBER. DO THEM IN THAT ORDER.

• Each group has a certain amount of students who will be responsible for their jobs.

• Each student has his/her responsibility, which will have to be completed according to the time-line given by the teacher. It is for this reason, that no student should be absent during this time. For absence due to medical situations, the student will have to complete their work at another time.

• The group will work for 10 days straight on the project. Each document will be completed in class. Each day has a value of 10 points (5 points for being present + 5 points for the work done in class that day. 100 points.

• The oral presentation will have a value of 100 points (70 points will be based on the Publicity Video for the World Tour, which will include information discovered and created, and 30 points for the presentation of the documents created in class. You may be creative and record it like a newscast or the back scene events of the concert. For example, how it created.

• Each group will have a day to present so make sure no one is absent on that day. Logically, oral evaluations mean that each person has to speak. If you do not say a word, your group will lose points from their presentation.

• THIS IS GROUP WORK SO AS A GROUP YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE WORKS. ONE GROUP, ONE SOUND, ONE CREATION = ONE RESULT = ONE GRADE.

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• MAKE WISE DECISIONS AT ALL TIMES. THERE ARE TASKS THAT MAY HAVE TO BE DONE USING MORE THAN ONE PERSON AT THE SAME TIME.

TEACHER’S RULES: • WRITTEN WORK WILL BE DONE IN THE CLASSROOM AT ALL TIMES. ORAL PRESENTATIONS MAY BE CREATED AT HOME. SINCE YOU WILL HAVE TO RECORD. • REMEMBER IF YOU ARE ABSENT, YOU WILL HAVE TO SET A TIME TO COME IN AND DO YOUR WORK, NO ONE WILL BE ACCEPTED, IF YOU COME AT ANOTHER TEACHER’S CLASS’ TIME. • CELLPHONES MAY BE USED TO FIND INFORMATION, BUT STUDENTS USING THEIR PHONES INCORRECTLY WILL BE DEDUCTED 5 POINTS FROM THE WRITTEN WORK EVALUATION EACH TIME SOMEONE IS CAUGHT. THE TEACHER WILL WORK ON THE ANECDOTE RECORD SHEET OF THE GROUP TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENS DAILY. • THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL WORK IN THIS PROJECT. IT’S TEAM WORK!

THE TEACHER WILL PRESENT HOW YOUR TEAM COULD WIN BONUS POINTS SO GET READY! TEAM CONTRACT Team Member:

Team Member:

OUR AGREEMENT: 1. WE ALL PROMISE TO LISTEN TO EACH OTHER’S IDEAS WITH RESPECT. 2. WE ALL PROMISE TO DO OUR WORK AS BEST WE CAN. 3. WE ALL PROMISE TO DO OUR WORK ON TIME SO NO ONE IS AFFECTED. 4. WE ALL PROMISE TO ASK FOR HELP IF WE NEED IT. 5. WE ALL PROMISE TO _______________________________________________ 6. WE ALL PROMISE TO _______________________________________________

If someone on our team breaks one or more of our rules, the team may have a meeting and ask the person to follow our agreement. If the person still breaks the rules, we will ask our teacher immediately to help us find a solution.

We understand that this is teamwork, not individual work.

Date signed:___________________________________ Team member signature: ______________________________________________________________________________ WORK SCHEDULE: WORK SCHEDULE:

DONE BY (name)

TOPIC

INSTRUCTIONS: Define each concept as a group. Then determine if there are any similarities. Select the concept that best suits the project.

•

Explain which concept(s) will be used according to the project. We got to the conclusion that __________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________

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PLACES VISITED ONLINE

REASON WE VISITED WAS…

INTERNET RESOURCE Declaration of Human Rights Instructions: Find the document UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF RIGHTS that presents human rights according to the United Nations. Select at least two that sustains the right that people have to be free.

1.

Articles that sustain our position are: _______________________________________________________

2. What do you think is missing in these articles? Your task is to write your own Declaration of Rights.

Remember that you must agree as a group on everything that is written or else this Declaration will not be signed and supported by everyone who has helped to create it.

3. Then, create 10 articles for points that state your amendment to the ones presented. Write them on the sheet that says: DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

Fact and Opinion Find a news article on-line or in a newspaper that presents slavery today. It should not be more than six months old. Place a copy of the news article with this document.

News title__________________________________________________________________ Source (where did you find it?) _______________________________________________ Author: ____________________________________________________________________ Date published: ____________________________________________________________ Present the facts of the news article. ____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Present your opinion of the news article. _________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paraphrase this amendment into common words. Don’t explain; just change the words into common words. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

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SLAVERY ACTIVITY: SONGS OF SLAVERY How did slaves express forbidden feelings and desires, such as anger, resentment, or a longing for freedom? One way was through music and the use of coded language. Like many people throughout history, slaves often sang songs to pass the time as they worked from dawn till dusk. These songs relied heavily on African musical traditions, incorporating rhythm, call-and-response patterns, and drumbeats. Since most plantation owners prohibited slaves from using actual drums, many learned to make similar sounds with their feet and used banjos. Because slaves were almost always in the presence of their white masters or overseers, they learned to disguise the true meaning of their songs, hiding politically challenging content behind seemingly innocuous words. Scratch beneath the surface of many of these songs and you will find coded messages about plans to escape, directions for how to head north on the Underground Railroad, derisive comments about white people, and soulful lamentations about life under slavery. As one of the only emotional and spiritual outlets available to slaves, these songs contain the hopes and dreams and frustrations and fears of generations of African Americans. Taken together, they form an especially rich resource for studying the lived experience of slavery.

Analyze the following song. Underline unknown words and write above a common synonym. Then in the box explain what it means?

I thought I heard them say, There were lions in the way, I don’t expect to stay Much longer here.

Run to Jesus - shun the danger I don’t expect to stay Much longer here.

Instructions: Answer the following question

• After watching the movie of Abraham Lincoln, explain what Abraham Lincoln did to help eliminate slavery.

• How has President Obama worked with human trafficking today? (Research) Instructions: Narrate how your team would help to stop human trafficking.

OUR ORIGINAL IDEA List of organizations that combat human trafficking and slavery.

On the webpage above there is a list of organizations with a primary or significant commitment to ending human trafficking. Go online, read, and select the organization that you would like to help with your world concert tour. You will focus on mentioning the organization partly or completely according to your group. The funds raised from sale of the concert tickets and other articles will be designated to this organization, so please select wisely. Make this decision yours but also the group’s.

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Name of Organization: When was it established?

Where was it established?

Name of the head leader of the foundation What does this foundation do today?

Why did you select it?

Let’s plan the tour.

1. Select three places around the world where you would like to do your tour.

2. Mark them with color.

3. Draw a plane or an object representing where your group will go first, second, and third. Make sure you select one from each continent.

4. Look for and specify the time difference between each country.

5. Complete the table below with the information required.

Country

Continent

Time of theConcert

Difference of time from Puerto Rico

Day and hour of the concert

Name of the coliseum or arena place

BEST CONCERT PLACES AROUND THE WORLD Instructions: After selecting the coliseum or arena where you want to do the tour, describe briefly what each one has to offer to help you do your concert. In your presentation you will have to present pictures of each one. Explain what makes them unique. Present the name, location, when it opened its doors for the first time, capacity, and other important details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_venues #1

#2

#3

Presented on the video and in oral presentation Instructions: Mark on the world map from what country to what country the tour will take place. Use markers to draw a plane and dot the route.

Instructions: 1. Create a song, a poem, or a speech (it doesn’t have to rhyme), which has a deep message on how we should help eliminate slavery today according to your investigation and solution.

2. Your song or poem should include: a. A title and four short and precise stanzas or paragraphs i. What is slavery or human trafficking?

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ii. What did Abraham Lincoln do end slavery? iii. What is being done today? b. What are you proposing to do to ďŹ nish this project: Title:___________________________________________ Create your tickets for the concert

You will have to reproduce this ticket so each student in the class has one, including the teacher.

•

Main elements 1. Name of the tour 2. Names of the main singer and the special guests 3. Name of the foundation (charity) you represent and are willing to help (% you will give to charity) 4. Date-place 5. Name the country of the concert (investigate where you can have it.

6. Name country 7. Cost per seat

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PBL:

World Wide Concert Tours “Let Me Fly Free” Oral Presentation

Evaluation (Rubric) Maximum: 100 Points Criteria I. Content (48 points)

4 Excellent

3 Good

2 Average

1 Needs improvement

20

10

5

0

4

3

2

1

Introduction: Students greet the audience and introduce themselves properly.

Artists’ presentation: Students present the singer(s) of the concert.

Tour Schedule: Students provide a complete schedule for the tour which includes dates, time, and coliseum of the countries.

Tour Price: Students provide the cost of the tickets.

Charity Sponsor: Students choose and organize an event for a charitable organization of their preference and present the amount of money that will be donated.

Tour Paraphernalia: Students provide one (1) creative paraphernalia item to promote the concert.

Originality: Students provide additional elements to their concert, such as use of extras, special effects, special guests, choreography, and other aspects to embellish the concert tour.

Summary of the project Students present in a creative way using a song, a poem. or a speech how they can as individuals of this generation eliminate slavery today.

Present the definition of the concept, what Abraham did, what is being done today, and the group’s solution to the problem.

Criteria II. Language (12 points) Pronunciation: Students make their best effort to communicate with clear English pronunciation and intonation patterns.

Grammar: Students use grammatical structures (parts of speech, syntax, capitalization and punctuation rules, and others correctly in all written components of the project.

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No use of Spanish: Students conduct their presentation entirely in English (No use of Spanish at all).

11. Each student received a ticket for 0 the concert 12. Presentation of the creation of All the students the World Concert Tour (Behind the participated in presenting Scenes) the behind the scenes of the process of creation 30 points Total amount

0

0

0

Most of students participated in the presentation of each section.

Some students participated in the presentationor only 15- 10 papers were presented.

More than half of the students did not participate or the information was incomplete.

20 points

10 points

1 point

_______/100

Create the Video: The video is a brief summary of what you have investigated and created so does not leave anything out. You may select who will appear in the video. For the presentation of the project, everyone has to appear and present. ***Extra bonus points will be given for an outstanding performance.

• Select from the singers that you presented in your oral speeches which three do you understand should do the concert?

• You may dress up for this part and become the singer.

• Who will be the lead singer?

• Your poem, song, or speech has to be heard during the video.

• How will you do this?

• Remember that the title, date, singers, places, and time have to be in the video.

• Important decisions made for the project are: • When will you record and where? Everyone should agree.

• Anecdote Record Sheet of the group

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STUDENTS DATE

DAILY EVALUATION

Instructions: Using the information of your coliseum, calculate the amount that will be earned from each concert and determine the amount that will be given to your foundation.

Name of the coliseum

How many seats does it have?

How much will you charge for each ticket?

How much money will you earn from the concert?

What percent will you give to your foundation?

Reection: Explain: a. How much did you know about this topic? b. How much do you know now?

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1-

2-

3-

Triorama Project: Pictorial Representation of Characters from Cantenbury Tales Laurimar Flores, JD

Introduction Why did I resort to teaching? It is usually the question students ask me when they learn I am a lawyer.

I usually smile and say I did not resort to teaching, teaching chose me. This apparent nobility begs a deeper reflection. Why is teaching viewed and oftentimes portrayed as a last resort and a refuge when one’s primary career goal did not happen? Despite the fact that teaching is a career in itself, people cannot fathom that while having other career options, he or she would choose teaching over other prestigious and money-rendering professions. After participating in this program, I can avow that despite teaching not having the best status quo, it is the best profession.

Regardless of the gratifying nature of teaching, our current status quo consists of being worked to the bone. Our fatigued work is daily criticized by our own students, our students’ parents, our school’s administration, and by our peers. It has become rather hard to function together.

Unfortunately, education is a community. All of the aforementioned factors influence and sometimes negate our efforts to solidify our educational community when their own interests are not respected, leaving us to act on behalf of the will of others rather than act on behalf of our conscience. Nevertheless, being a teacher in today’s society means to become a crusader to protect our societal “holy grail,” intellectualism, and by way of it, civic integrity. However, sometimes our fight is unbearable with all of the imposing and blaming set upon us.

However, I have found that during my teaching experience, the truly rotten factor that impedes our labor is ourselves. Granted, the amount of scrutiny teachers face every day is bound to make us seem indifferent and under appreciated. We must impress upon ourselves the most valuable lesson is to show resiliency to our educational community. We are teachers despite knowing that we will be underpaid,

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emotionally drained, tired, and intellectually challenged by those that do not know better. We must stride on.

Evidently, our teaching has transcended into a much more morally abstract profession. Now we are agents of change and not of monetary gain. We are shaping individuals that are not fostered at home.

We are the necessary link to reality to oblivious and overarching parents. We are caregivers, even if we did not ask to be. We are the immediate ethical influence to our community. We are the resources when the public educational system does not have adequate funding. We are conveyors of knowledge and creativity; but, above all, we show our humanity with every pain and every joy of our vocation.

Participating in this program has granted me a new outlook on my teaching methodology. It has given me new creative fire to spread thorough my classroom and through my peers’ classrooms. It has enabled me to present multidimensional content to my classes. It really has helped me greatly and has given me a renewed purpose, to instill resiliency within my students’ hearts and my peers, and to establish a cooperative link between parents and the administration. After my participation in this Project, I can affirm everlastingly that I did not resort to teaching; teaching chose me to be the bearer of justice that has long been absent from our legal practice.

Background Information This year signified big changes in my career. I started teaching in Commonwealth-Parkville School located in Hato Rey, San Juan. Commonwealth-Parkville School is a small school with English speaking students. In fact, their whole curriculum is in English as English is their first language and Spanish is taught as a second language. The change in my educational scenery would be transcendental because, in addition to starting in a new educational community, I started teaching 11th grade for the first time, ever.

My previous teaching experience was in Middle School and it was solely based on reinforcing grammar and reading comprehension skills. Ultimately, it was a big change, but I was exhilarated.

I welcomed wholeheartedly this transformation because it was about me teaching what I have always loved, British literature. However, teaching 11th graders about William Shakespeare, poetry, Beowulf, Old English, Canterbury Tales, Reformation, Morality, Chivalry, Courtesy, Virtues, etc. is a daunting task, especially when they are infested with memes (that destroy every language convention) and delve more into visual media, like “Snapchat” and “Vines”, rather than reading classic literature texts. Therefore, my biggest challenge was to engage students into, 1. reading, per se, and 2. learning about British Literature while also enjoying it. I sought to teach with the Community Language Learning approach where students work together to create meaningful context by means of creating experiences instead of one-directional lessons.

Then, an opportunity arose for me to utilize the gained tools in the Project. The class group that I chose for my project was my Period C class. It is my largest class group, composed of 16 students. I was to teach the Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales is a very significant text to teach because it is the first text in English and it is the first text that presented varied characterization. Therefore, for this class discussion, I decided to fuse visual media and art with the multiple texts and dense characterization. I decided to use the “Triorama Project.” Students were very energetic and gleeful to work on their project.

Undoubtedly, the tools and resources that I have acquired in this Project have given me an energized view upon traditional literature methodology. I have used them to increase student engagement and solidify understanding. The result has had a bilateral effect, making a lasting impression with my students (since I’m a new teacher) and having students acquire long-term knowledge.

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Background Information Commonwealth-Parkville School and Commonwealth Campus High School was founded in 1952. It is a co-educational, non-sectarian, college preparatory private school that has approximately 250 students, from 7th to 12th grade. A fun fact about the school is that it was founded for the families of the participants of the newly developed program, Economic Development Administration, or Fomento in Spanish. Its curriculum and instruction is in English. In addition to English being part of the School’s curriculum and instruction, students also speak it outside their classrooms.

My students, since they are all predominantly from the San Juan affluent area, have been exposed to opportunities which surely enriches their learning, and consequently my teaching. Therefore, since my students have a strong command of the English language, my challenge stems from a motivational standpoint, to strive to transmit, if possible, my love for literature or to, at least, entice them into appreciating it.

Educational Standards Commonwealth-Parkville uses the Common Core Standards as their educational standards. Specifically, for my 21st Century Project, I have aligned the following Common Core Standards:

• CCR.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

• WHST.11-12.1.c Use words, phrases, and clauses as well as varied syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.

• RL.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences draw from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

• RL.11-12.7 Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text.

(Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)

• CCR.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

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Procedure The devised project was the Triorama Project. This artwork was crafted by folding cardstock into a tridimensional four-part stand, creating a sort of canvass on each for a student to creatively express herself/himself. This project was divided into different phases. Initially, students were paired into groups of four. Then, they would devise a pictorial representation of four characters from the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales. They would brainstorm, prepare and assign materials for them to use on their designs.

Following the preparation phase, students were to give a modern interpretation of the characters and perfectly align the characters to today’s societal archetypes, using references from the Canterbury Tales Prologue (i.e. quote and line number). At the final phase, they would craft an oral presentation explaining their triorama elements, their aligned interpretations and dress as their modern interpretation. Students would work and present their project within a week frame. Coincidentally, their project presentation was held on the week of October 2016.

Evidence of Students’ Work

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Students’ Feedback Students were elated to work on this project. They enjoyed working together, having artistic input, and devising a cooperative enterprise while having an unfiltered and authentic experience with the text itself, that is, to construct a pertinent 21st century meaning and context to a medieval text. Once students finished their presentations, they were very vocal about their impressions and were more than willing to share their feedback on it. Overall, it was a very productive lesson for us all.

References Allen, J., & Holt McDougal. (2012). Holt McDougal literature: [Gr. 12]. Evanston, Ill.: Holt McDougal.

Final Reflection This experience has been a totally gratifying one. I was able to innovate my methodology and acquire new knowledge to be implemented in my teaching procedures. The topics discussed in the multiple workshops not only were stimulating, but also important for us to modernize our teaching methodologies and strategies. I truly hope that this initiative continues, since education in today’s globalized society is far from static and plain. Teachers need to update their teaching methods so that, in effect, we can close the generational breach that affects the teaching/learning process.

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Lesson Plan: Fables Integrated with Habitats in the Science Class Alexandra Conde Introduction I no longer work at the private school where I started this school year 2016-2017. The idea of moving on to greener pastures is one I had played around with in my head for the last five years. Yet I had never had the strength to finally take that leap and leaving.

Every job has its ups and downs, its good and bad moments, and its no place, no boss, no coworker seemed perfect. However, when you know the ins and outs of a job, whose system you have already become familiarized with, the books and classes, it still may be a tough decision to leave, even when you know that it is not the best place for you. You could say that I had gotten into a rut in my career. I was bored with my classes and I did not feel as if I was challenging myself or my students. My coworkers and friends had begun taking professional development workshops on Saturday and began bombarding me with all the stories and of the activities they were doing. It sounded fun so when an opportunity arose for me to join the workshops as well, I did not hesitate.

Joining the groups of teachers that sacrificed their precious sleep, whose Saturday and Sunday mornings are precious, has definitely been eventful. Some would even say that attending these workshops is what gave me the strength and motivation to move, to find a place where I felt like I belonged. I never thought that I would leave my old school in the middle of the school year, but the way these workshops stirred me, I knew that enough was enough and that I needed to act on what had been going through my mind for a few years.

I had gotten so bored with teaching that I was constantly looking for other options of things I could do instead. I even decided to begin my Master’s degree in linguistics rather than something related to education so that I could have other options. The workshops and professors that guided me brought back not only my inspiration to teach, but also my desire to be influential in children’s lives and help them fall in love with learning.

I am an elementary English schoolteacher whose five years of experience have been dedicated to the sixth grade; so second grade is completely new territory for me. I now teach language arts, science, and math. I have only been working at my new school for about a month, but in that month I have had so much fun teaching and learning with my students. My teaching style has completely changed and I now feel like I am doing what I was meant to do and it is all thanks to the workshops we were given and the experiences we shared.

My classroom consists of 21 students. The schedule I was given is incredibly useful, because even though I plan for the week, I like to organize myself before each class so I know exactly what it is I will be doing.

The math and science teachers of the grade prepare the lesson plans and materials for their classes, but we all share the work and get together to discuss what it is that we wish to accomplish with the students per

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unit. The amount of work is divided between the three of us, which gives us an added benefit. Compared to the situation I found myself in at my other school I would have to say that here I am working under a much more ideal environment. Not only is the number of students per group drastically different, but also I have a greater variety of tools and materials at my disposal, which adds to my greater sense of ease in my work. As of right now, as hard as it was to make the decision to leave my former school, I think it is the best thing I could have done for my students and me. If a teacher is not happy in the environment or her working conditions, she cannot give her students their best chance. Therefore, now that I am not only happy, but also comfortable with my working conditions, I can give my students quality education.

The unit I decided to work on for my first project with the students was fables. We discussed the characteristics of fables; because it was the first time they were studying the topic. Although most of them had already heard of a few of the stories, they just did not know they were considered fables. This unit, coincidentally, was worked on while in the science class; the students were learning about habitats.

In the science class the teachers planned for the students to create a habitat diorama with animals. In order to integrate the topics in science and language arts, the students had to come up with a short fable, including the animal they chose for their habitat diorama and the information gathered into their presentations. The hardest part of the integration was coming up with a moral to add to their stories, but because the group is relatively small, I was able to sit with the students and help them include their ideas, all the while assessing their work.

Second Grade - Puerto Rico Common Core Standards These Standards were applied both to the study of the various stories that were read in class and the skills learned in science and then integrated into the students’ presentations.

•

RL

2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text 2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.

2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

•

RF

2.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

2.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

•

W

2.3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

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2.5 With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.

2.8 Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

•

SL

2.2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

2.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification. (See grade 2 Language standards 1 and 3 here for specific expectations.)

•

L

2.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

2.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Materials 1. shoe box covered in construction paper 2. plastic toys and leaves 3. paint 4. glue and scissors 5. other materials needed for diorama (be creative) Objectives During the lesson, students will: 1. identify characteristics of a fable 2. create their own fable.

3. apply newly acquired vocabulary, spelling, and high frequency words to their work.

Core Values 1. Creativity: Students will be given the opportunity to create their habitat dioramas and be as creative as they wish. Students will also use their creativity to write a story based on the animal from their habitat.

2. Social transformation: Through reading various fables students will reflect on the morals they will interpret from the stories.

3. Diversity: Students will be given the opportunity to see and hear the different ideas their classmates have even when many of them have chosen the same kinds of habitats and animals.

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Background Information As I had mentioned before, my students are in second grade. The class they look forward to the most is science, because we do many projects and activities. Students also become fascinated with many of the topics because it is fairly easy for them to apply it to experiences they have had in their every day lives.

Having this information, I chose to combine fables into the habitats Unit because they are a very creative bunch that loves to tell stories and share their work. Therefore, I figured it would be the best moment to utilize both skills and classes, English with science. I must say that it worked phenomenally. Students were excited about all of the aspects related to their projects. My students love to share stories during discussions in class, but it is a tougher challenge to get them to write, because they claim that they do not know how. Making them understand that the bulk of the work would be the habitat and the story was only part of the oral presentation portion calmed their nerves and helped them to work more smoothly.

Procedure 1. Day 1 Students get familiarized with spelling (long I sound) and high frequency words.

2. Day 2 Students get familiarized with vocabulary words and characteristics of a fable.

3. Day 3 Students practice using vocabulary and high frequency words.

4. Day 4 Students read story, “The boy who cried wolf”, identify fable characteristics and answer comprehension questions.

5. Day 5 Students read story, “The lion and the mouse”, and identify fable characteristics.

6. Day 6 Students use the animal chosen for their habitat diorama to come up with a fable of their own.

7. Day 7 Students finish working on their habitats and prepare for presentation.

8. Day 8 Students present.

Evidence of Students’ Work

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Students’ Feedback Not having had the opportunity before attending these workshops to do many projects with students in the past, I can honestly say that completing this project became a little overwhelming, but much more rewarding. My students are still relatively small and they are just now being introduced to the science class. Throughout the realization of the project, I was bombarded by many questions, not only from the students but also by the parents. I was happy to answer everyone, because my goal was for the parents to be clear on what it was we were doing, therefore giving the students the opportunity to truly do their best.

Before I even had a chance to ask the students how they felt about doing the project, once we were done with the presentations a student raised his hand and asked if our next project for science could be like this one, which made me extremely happy. I had another student that could not even contain himself.

He walked directly up to me and said, “I’m really enjoying this class. I can learn so much.” It makes me incredibly happy to hear these comments, because the students are learning and they see it as fun.

Resources The book I used for the reading of, “The boy who cried wolf”, and all the other material related to the story was retrieved from McGraw Hill Wonders for second grade Unit 2, week 2. The idea for the habitat diorama was shown to us at the workshops given during the summer. I was not present, but the idea was shared with me by one of the teachers who also took the workshop.

Final Reflection I was not able to participate in the workshops that took place during the summer, but with the ones I was able to attend during the semester from August to December 2016, I truly found inspiration in my profession again. It has made me want to come up with my own ideas that I can use to mold my school’s educational system to my students’ needs. The workshops have especially driven me to find a new understanding for what it is we do on a day to day basis. Children do not learn the same way we did. It is not their fault we work for an educational system that does not completely understand this. We may not be able to change the educational system as a whole. However, with the changes we make in our own classrooms, we can guarantee that these children learn and more importantly fall in love with learning.

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Graphic Novels in the ESL Classroom: Graphic Novel Exploration Julissa A. MuĂąoz Berdiel

Lesson Plan: 8th Grade The lesson is intended to enhance learning, promote literacy and provide incentive for the reluctant reader by integrating reading, writing, art, pronunciation and speech.

Objectives: During the lesson of graphic novels in the 8th grade classroom, students will: 1.

Distinguish the structure and elements of graphic novels.

2.

Discover the vocabulary or jargon related to graphic novels.

3.

Read about legends of vampires for background knowledge.

4.

Read about ancient monsters for background knowledge of ancient Greek myths.

5.

Identify the characters in the graphic novels, Dracula and Perseus and Medusa.

6.

Read the graphic novels, Dracula and Perseus and Medusa.

7.

Create a triorama based on the graphic novel chosen.

8. Give an oral presentation of the triorama with its three dimensions.

9. Present a mini play from the scripts based on the graphic novels.

10. Use a mind map to draw a scene associated to the graphic novel.

11. Write the part of the story that is being illustrated on an index card.

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Procedure Building on prior knowledge, students will read about different kinds of graphic novel panels. Students will also learn about the three types of content panels and how they are used in graphic novels. Students will learn about the eleven types of story panels that they may associate with the story elements given in the English class. Students will view the different types of graphic novel elements in sample graphic novel excerpts projected on the board. Students will learn new terms and vocabulary for graphic novels.

Students will be presented with two graphic novels. The two novels will be given to each group of students to browse. Before reading, background knowledge will be given on each graphic novel. Background knowledge will center on legends and also Greek mythology. This will provide students with the direction each graphic novel entails. Students will also have a character review. With each graphic novel, each character will be presented and students may use the internet to acquire information. Students will then begin to read the graphic novel that is projected on the SmartBoard as a group. Each student will have the opportunity to read aloud and portray each character as they imagine them to be. This activity is meant to promote participation and literacy. After each graphic novel, students will discuss the common core reading questions. Each student will be allowed to offer their opinion and will be required to cite the part of the text that supports their answers. Students will then be divided into four groups. Each group will choose a graphic novel to represent in a triorama project.

Materials 1. scissors 2. glue 3. rulers 4. poster boards 5. art supplies 6. additional art material brought by students The project will consist of four two dimensional triangles. The first triangle will represent the title of the graphic novel chosen as well as the group members’ names. The second triangle will represent an event the students feel is relevant to the beginning of the story. The third will represent an event from the middle of the story and the forth will center on the ending. The triorama must have a sequence of events relevant to the story. Each depiction must match the description written by the students for each triangle.

Upon completion, students will present their trioramas to the class as an oral presentation.

Resources Finally, students will begin to work with Readers Theater. Readers Theater consists of scripts based on each graphic novel. The teacher will divide the class in two groups. Seven students will be placed into the first group and six students in the second. The first group will be given a Readers Theater script for the graphic novel Dracula and the second will be given Perseus and Medusa. The members of the group will look at the script and decide who will represent each character, as well as the narrator. After students come to a decision, they will then begin discussing who they chose to represent each character and the scenes in the script for presentation to the class. Time will be allotted to students in class so that they may

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practice their lines, create background scenery using props, or prepare a PowerPoint presentation with a background to project on the SmartBoard. Students will be given time to prepare and then present their mini plays.

Writing Portion Students will be provided class time to brainstorm in their groups. Students may use a mind map in order to organize their ideas and information. Students will make a mind map centered on their concepts. The drawings will have words and parts of words added in order to associate the drawing with the text.

For the writing portion, students will explain what part of the story is being illustrated. This description will be written on an index card provided by the teacher. A title will be needed for each index card.

Below each title, the students will include direct quotations that explain the setting (in order to support the detailed illustrations made by the students). Students will provide supporting details along with the page number(s) where the description can be found.

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Puerto Rico Travel Brochure Mirnaly Berríos Candelaria

Introduction I have been a teacher of the Department of Education of Puerto Rico for 23 years. I teach seventh and eighth grade in Onofre Carballeira Umpierre Middle School, a public school in Cataño. The school classification is Priority and at this moment we are receiving the services of the SM Company, a school modernization program. We are located in front of the San Juan Bay with the most beautiful view. Most of our students come from the nearby low income, Housing Project who are culturally limited. A big percentage of the students’ families are recipients of Federal Aid such as P.A.N. (Programa de Asistencia Nutricional or Nutritional Assistance Program).

I am privileged, compared to the majority of teachers, with a classroom with great facilities. I have a mini-lab with laptops, a Smart Board and internet access. Even with all of these facilities, it has been a big challenge to get the students’ attention, especially with the seventh grade. I thank Mrs. Abilda Bosch, my English coach, for giving me all the support with this seventh grade group.

I worked the Unit 7.2- Puerto Rico Travel Brochure in the Puerto Rico Core Standards of the English Program. One of my objectives was to make them feel proud of Puerto Rico and to enhance the beautiful and positive attributes of our nation. Also, I wanted to improve their interpersonal relations with their peers through Cooperative Learning strategies and the use of technology to capture their interests in the English class. They designed a Travel Brochure of one of the Towns in Puerto Rico.

I also worked with the eighth grade Dr. Sesto’s workshop “Visit to the Museum”. It was a great experience for us and the students enjoyed the visit very much. For most of the students that was the first time in a museum. They had never visited a museum before because this community is culturally limited and I was happily surprised of the interest they demonstrated.

Background Group 7-1 Onofre Carballeira Umpierre School, Cataño, Puerto Rico

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I selected seventh grade to work with because this group has been a challenge in different aspects. At the beginning of the school year, the seventh graders demonstrated a lack of attention and weak English basic skills. They didn’t follow instructions. They also presented discipline problems, had bad relationships with their peers, and didn’t bring their homework to class. The results of the first ten weeks of school were poor. I was very concerned with this group’s academic achievement.

The chart above demonstrates the number of students who achieved grades of C (1), D (4), and F (18) at the end of 10 weeks of class in the first semester.

The chart above demonstrates in percentages the grade students achieved C (4%), D (17%), and F (78%) at the end of 10 weeks of class in the first semester.

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PUERTO RICO CORE STANDARDS Unit 7.2 PUERTO RICO TRAVEL BROCHURE •

Essential Question: What do I value about Puerto Rico?

7. L.1- Listen and collaborate with peers during social and academic interactions in class, group, and partner.

Discussion in read-aloud, oral presentations, and a variety of grade appropriate topics.

7.W .2- Write information texts to examine and analyze topics and ideas independently using appropriate Text organization.

7.W .4- Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, editing, using editing marks, rewriting, and publishing.

OBJECTIVES: 1. Conduct a short research project about Puerto Rico and read informational texts and related website articles on its geography, climate, culture, location, attractions, and others in order to produce a travel brochure.

2. Identify what a Travel Brochure must include.

3. Collaborate with peers as part of the writing process.

4. Create a Travel Brochure about one of the towns of Puerto Rico.

PROCEDURE • Day 1- Students brainstorm the essential question, What do I value about Puerto Rico? They draw two things that represent Puerto Ricans. They present their work to the group.

• Day 2- Define the word Attraction. List five attractions in Cataño. Teacher lists students’ responses on the smart board.

• Day 3- Students examine carefully a variety of commercial travel brochures. After their observations, they list the kind of information they want included.

• Day 4- Teacher gives the instructions of the project and lets them know about the information they need to include in their Travel Brochure. Students read and discuss the Travel Brochure Rubric.

Teacher shows an example of the work, “Cataño Travel Brochure” .

•

Day 5- Teacher offers a demonstration of the use of the computer program “Word”.

• Day 6- Teacher creates the cooperative groups using “Students Grouping Pencils”. Each group chooses a town of Puerto Rico.

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•

Day 7, 8- Students research their town and create the Brochure.

•

Day 9, 10- Groups Oral Presentations

STUDENTS’ FEEDBACK The chart above demonstrates in percentages a comparison between the grade students achieved at the end of 10 weeks of class (blue bar) C (4%), D (17%), and F (78%) and at the end 20 weeks of class (orange bar) B (13%), C (13%), D (26%), and F (48%) in the first semester. There is a significant difference between both marking grade periods. More students improved their grades with the teaching strategies employed during the semester.

TEACHER’S REFLECTION The objectives were met, and to my surprise, the feedback of the students was very positive. They worked quietly and collaborated with each other. Most of the students completed the project satisfactorily and on time. During the process, some students showed expertise in the use of technology. Most important of all, they were very receptive and the discipline was very good including some students with previous discipline problems. They completed the brochure.

From now on, I am planning to include more activities integrating the computer and other technology. I am so satisfied because they started to show some improvement at the end of the first semester.

I am very thankful of participating in this Project and to the professors for their patience and for sharing their knowledge. After the workshops, I think I understand my 21st Century students better now. This experience has been very useful and so enriching. You activated me again as a teacher and as a student. I think I am going to complete my Master’s Degree. THANKS!!!

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Infinite Explosion Box Character Traits Lillian Serrano Quiles

Introduction I teach at María C. Osorio School. This school is located inside a community called Toa Alta Heights in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. That is my residential area. This is the place where I was raised since I was six years old. Back then in 1976, this school didn’t exist. I was twelve years of age in 1982 when the school first opened the gates to the children of this community, myself included. This school is very special to me because I was a seventh grade student in the classroom where I teach sixth graders today. The name of the school when it first opened was Segunda Unidad Toa Alta Heights. Back then it included kindergarten to 9th grade. Today if you search for María C. Osorio in the Department of Education (DE) page, it would say that it includes grades K-8, but this year we only teach grades K-6, next year it will include grades K-7, and by 2018 it will include grades K-8.

Our school is big and pretty. I see it, con los “ojos del alma”, with the eyes of my soul. We have beautiful murals painted by a dear teacher that is no longer with us. He died six years ago, but he left his mark in our school and he will never be forgotten. We have murals in the lobby of the school, in the library, which was named after him in his honor, Ricardo Fonseca Ayala Library, in the classroom that used to be his classroom, and in the lunchroom. Most of our students are from the community, which means that I taught their cousins, older brothers or sisters, some of who are already in college or in high school. I could not be in a better place. My classroom has most of what I need. The only thing that it lacks is technology, such as computers, a digital projector, a smart board, sound equipment, and a TV. Besides technology and some supplies like extra dry-erase markers to be able to use the Desk Mats, everything else is there.

I have lots of books, dictionaries, word pocket charts, posters, and other educational materials that I obtained through three different college proposals that I participated in. My glass is half full. At least I have internet access in my classroom so students that have a cellular phone can connect to the internet in the classroom to search for information, like the day that the fifth graders searched for the biography of Olympic tennis winner, Monica Puig.

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Fourth to Six Grade- Puerto Rico Core Standards I used unit 6.1, Characters Facing Challenges, to make the Infinite Explosion Box using the students’ character traits. I modified the box and made it smaller than the one we made in the proposal with Dr. Sexto. My students made nine rectangles instead of eighteen. Then they wrote a complete sentence in each rectangle using a character trait to describe themselves. At the end, they presented themselves to the teacher through an oral presentation using the character traits in their Infinite Explosion Box. This unit project took six days to complete in the classroom. I used the speaking standard 6.S.2b, Express Self using correct simple sentences. The content vocabulary of this unit project was character traits.

The students were given a character traits list to choose from and to select the best nine that describe themselves.

The Depth of Knowledge (DOK) was the skill-concept. The students were asked to evaluate themselves and decide which character traits from the list provided best describe them. They learned the concept of character trait and to describe their personality and physical characteristics. The core value was honesty.

Through the unit project, the teacher had the opportunity to get to know her students.

Procedure •

Day 1

On the first day, the objective of the class after reading the first page of the story titled, La Bamba, was that the students identify the characters and their character traits with 100% accuracy. After the students identified the character traits, the teacher let them choose a scrapbooking paper. Then the teacher asked the students to use their ruler to measure 10 cm. horizontally on the scrapbooking paper and 9.5 cm. vertically. At the end of the class, the teacher collected the scrapbooking paper with the nine rectangles made by two horizontal lines and two vertical lines dividing the scrapbooking paper in nine rectangles.

•

Day 2

On the second day, the teacher explained the rubric to the students. The total value of this project was 100 points, nine points for cutting nine rectangles, nine points for gluing the nine rectangles on the scrapbooking paper, nine points for writing the character traits, three points for following instructions, nine points for correct punctuation, nine points for correct spelling, nine points for writing complete sentences beginning with a capital letter and an “I am” sentence starter as differentiated instruction for some students, ten points for the oral presentation and three points for making the lid. Then the teacher asked the students to choose their favorite color of construction paper to make nine rectangles measuring 9 cm. and 8.5 cm. of different colors to glue in their scrapbooking paper.

•

Day 3

The objective of the third day through the sample of character traits given, was that the students describe their character traits. After choosing the character traits that best described them, the students wrote a complete sentence in each rectangle.

•

Day 4

On the fourth day, the objective through oral presentations of the Infinite Explosion Box Character Traits, was that the students describe their character traits with 100% accuracy.

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•

Day 5

The students that were absent the day before did their oral presentations. In addition, students in special education were given additional time to complete their projects, as well as some regular students who needed differentiated instruction.

•

Day 6

The students made the lids for their character traits Infinite Explosion Box.

Evidence of students’ work.

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Background Information My sixth grade students are new students for me. They know each other, but I don’t know them. I never taught them before, so I wanted to get to know them. This activity was the perfect one, because the concept that I needed to develop was character traits. First, I introduced the reading of La Bamba, the reading suggested in the literature Connection section of the curricular map for unit 6.1 and had them identify the character traits of the main character of the story, Manuel. Then I asked them to describe themselves.

Student’s Feedback The students provided me feedback of their learning experience through a reflective journal, which is an attachment from unit 6.1 and is another evidence in the curricular map.

References You can find the reflective journal in the DE official webpage, or in http://carolinaenglishteachers. blogspot.com/2016/09/blog-post.html. Houghton Mifflin Reading Expeditions, pages 162-175.

Final Reflection As a participant, I feel very satisfied with my participation in this proposal. I learned a lot. I always do.

I learn something new everyday. I am a life-long learner. I love to study and teach what I learn to others.

I am in love with the materials the proposal gave me. I already used the Venn Diagram Desk Mats with my fifth grade students. I could use some more dry-erased markers, though, and I need at least 12 more response boards because ten are not enough for the whole class. However, I have a lot more than I did before I started participating in this proposal. I enjoyed Dr. Sexto’s visit to my classroom last Monday, November 7, 2016. It was a wonderful experience. Sharing with her what I have done with my students was very nice. Showing her my beautiful school, the murals, and even the results of the students’ elections in school for mayor and governor was very interesting. It made me feel proud of my surroundings. She could see what I have and what I still need. This proposal helped me to grow professionally. My sixth grade students enjoyed the project I learned to do during the summer, which I later taught them how to do in August 2016. I met new colleagues and shared with others that I already knew in a different environment. It was a very rewarding experience. I would do it again and again, and again without hesitation. I loved this proposal!

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The Integration of English in Students’ Daily Routines Thalice Rodríguez Torres

Pre-Kinder & Kindergarten Introduction I teach Pre-Kinder and Kindergarten English in a private school in Bayamón. To almost all of my students, I am the first direct interaction they have with the English language. I believe I have a big responsibility, because I am able to open a door to a world full of opportunities and competition. Even though I teach in a private school, I still have to cope with diversity in my classroom.

With diversity, I mean the different levels at which all my students learn and the special needs that some of them have. To my luck, my Kindergarten classroom has just nine students, which makes it easier to attend each if their needs.

On a daily basis, my students sing, dance, and are exposed to a variety of activities that help them acquire English as a second language. In my school, the administration does not force me to use a textbook with the students, even though I can if I wish to. This gives me the opportunity to expose my students to the English language in many different ways. The school I work for has an open-minded administration, which is beneficial not only for me, but for my students quality of learning. This doesn’t mean that it is a perfect school; there is always something to improve. For example, the English periods are fifty minutes a day, which is certainly not enough to make students competent in the language. In addition, from the parents’ point of view, the English language is seen as the least important subject from all and they do not encourage their kids to do their best. If they only knew all the opportunities that knowing a second language could bring their child in the future, they would motivate their children more.

To be able to cope with the problems faced on a daily basis, I invite parents very often to the classroom so that they could witness the importance of the English class. Parents will be able to see the motivation that their kids have towards the English language and the improvement they have made since day one.

By doing this, parents might realize that their kids are at an age in which acquiring a second language is much easier. Now is their moment.

I decided to begin integrating some of the strategies learned from the workshops with my students in the unit My Family and Friends. My students worked with Flat Stanley and it was an enriching experience for them. This strategy was implemented during the unit and combined with materials provided by the workshop. The students felt motivated towards the language and the activities done in the classroom.

This made them want to learn more each day.

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Pre-kinder & Kinder- Puerto Rico Core Standards K.L.1 Listen and interact with peers and teachers during read-alouds, social interactions, group activities, and informal oral presentations.

K.S.1 Engage in conversations and relate personal experience or story information by asking and answering simple yes-no and wh- questions using gestures, words, and simple phrases.

K.S.2 Use common gestures, single words, and simple phrases when interacting with others, retelling texts and recounting experiences.

K.S.5 Describe personal experiences and familiar topics, using vocabulary and details appropriate to the situation and filling in gaps in oral English with first language.

Objectives As the students engage in Flat Stanley’s activities, they will: 1.

listen actively to the story

2.

prepare the main character of the story

3.

include the character in the daily routine

4.

share experiences with classmates

5.

propose new activities to do with their character

Materials 1.

story book

2.

paper

3.

laminating machine

4.

crayons

5.

markers

6.

pencils

7.

scissors

Gardner’s Intelligences 1.

Linguistic

2.

Interpersonal

3.

Visual/spatial

4.

Musical

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Background Information My students are very happy, active, intelligent, and curious, which makes it easier for them to engage in new and innovative activities. This also helps them in the process of learning and doing. I decided to approach my Kindergarten group through the strategies and activities learned in the workshops because it is a small and competent group. The next semester they will be first graders, so I wanted to make them fall in love even more with the English language. In addition, I wanted to make them ready and open to a higher level in the English subject matter.

Procedure To begin integrating one of the activities learned in the workshops, I first narrated the story “Flat Stanley” to my students. I used an iPad and images of the different scenes in the story to narrate it.

1. I gave the students the silhouette of a boy’s body so that they could color it and decorate it as they wished.

2. After the students decorated and personalized the silhouette, I laminated each one of them with a laminating machine so that they wouldn’t be damaged so easily.

3. I explained to the students that for the upcoming weeks their homework would always be to spend time with Flat Stanley and integrate him to their daily routines.

4. Each day at the end of the class the students would stand in front of the class and talk about their experience with Flat Stanley. Each day there were new adventures to talk about.

Evidence of Student’s Work Student’s Feedback The students and the parents’ feedback was a very rewarding one. The students wanted to keep integrating Flat Stanley, not only in their daily routines, but in school activities as well. The parents noticed that their kids were feeling motivated and engaged in the English class. They even noticed that their kids were speaking more English at home than usual. Since the students had such a great feedback, I decided that I would integrate Flat Stanley into more units because it would help and motivate them into learning new things.

References For the integration of the activity in the unit, I used Google to search the images of Flat Stanley’s story.

I used the book, “Flat Stanley”, not only to read it out loud, but also to show the students the story and images in the book as well.

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Final Reection When I was chosen to be part of the proposal, I was very excited and curious about what it was all going to be about. I just thought the proposal would consist of long conversations regarding education. Never would I have thought that I would receive so much. The strategies, activities, advice, conversations, integrations, friends, among others, were a few of all the things I received from the proposal. It was deďŹ nitely a great opportunity and experience every teacher should have.

I am a very young teacher with very little experience in teaching and at the beginning I thought that the proposal would be more beneďŹ cial to those teachers who have been teaching for many years. As the years go by, teachers need new ideas and motivation to continue doing what they love. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to be part of the proposal in my early years of teaching, which means that I am ready from the beginning to do things as they are supposed to be done. I now have all the tools, the techniques, the strategies, and the motivation to be the excellent teacher I have always dreamt of being.

Thanks to the proposal I received a lot of new and innovative materials to use in the classroom. These materials as well have motivated my students to be engaged in new activities. This proposal has been a great opportunity for me; it is rare because the English class has been put aside for many years. Teachers at my school were very surprised of the opportunity I had, because it is always they who attend the workshops, the meetings, receive the materials, etc., to enhance their lessons. It would be great if more teachers could have the opportunity to participate in these workshops. Maybe this could be the beginning of a huge change in education, more teachers doing things the right way.

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Creating a Poetry Notebook to Engage English Language Learners Heysha M. Díaz Meléndez Introduction Entering through the rusted school gate the neon orange graffiti with sexual innuendos greets visitors, students, and teachers alike, as it has every day for months since the school was vandalized for the second time this school year. A police cruiser sits parked inside, lights flashing. The students hang around the front gate, some with eyes shifting, obviously suspicious and uncomfortable with the presence of the police in their humble school, and others with a desperate gaze as they weigh their odds of escaping past the guard and to the freedom of the streets. Still others wait tiredly around for the bell to ring, with expressions that seem far older than fourteen and fifteen year olds should have, leaving one wondering what else have they seen in their young lives.

Welcome to Escuela de la Comunidad Dr. Facundo Bueso.

Much like the real Bueso, who was born in Mexico, and lived in Spain, before ultimately arriving in Puerto Rico, the large majority of the student population is an immigrant one. Eighty-five percent of the students are from the Dominican Republic. Teachers have had to say goodbye to several students that have moved and changed schools two or three times in one school year. They have returned to the Dominican Republic; they have left to the United States, and in some cases, they have parents who simply changed them from one local school to another with no explanation. In the same way that teachers wish students well on their journeys, they welcome new arrivals, who are mostly quiet, mostly unsure of the teachers who attend them each day, mostly uncertain of which cliques to join, having suddenly found themselves in a foreign environment.

For all the transient population, there are those who remain, year after year, those who have reputations and who have made a name for themselves amongst the streets of the community before stepping into the classroom. One teacher who has been a part of the community for several years recounts that parents bring their students to Facundo because of the teachers. Another, who has spent her entire career there, is now teaching the teenagers of her former students. Both are rooted here, dedicated to making a difference. Coming from wavering worlds, this sense of stability is something that the students have come to rely on, particularly from the team of tenth grade teachers, a group who rarely miss, rarely send the students home early, and always try to find a way to engage them. The students grumble and fight, but they arrive each day, trudging along with their backpacks and projects, knowing they will find those doors open for them.

Of those tenth grade students, fully one-third are designated Special Education. Many more have never been tested due to the cumbersome process prevalent in the Department of Education, but demonstrate possible learning disabilities. The school has a regular curriculum, as well as pre-vocational, independent living, homebound, salón recurso, multiple impairments, and adult training programs; the majority of the faculty is comprised of special education teachers.

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This school is a community of largely immigrant, transient, poor students fighting to survive in a world that has shown them little mercy. They struggle for the slightest achievement, as does the faculty. It is not the ideal situation that anyone pictures in their minds when thinking of a school. It certainly it is not what one sees televised on sitcoms and one-hour dramas or in photos of classrooms from developed countries around the world where students wear clean uniforms. These students on TV or from industrialized nations are healthy and happily engaged in the learning process with access to technology, books, and the arts. They seem to possess a sparkling creativity that has been consistently nurtured in schools that are so clean they seem to shine with possibility.

That is not the story of Facundo Bueso.

Teachers have given class with no electricity, using dog-eared class copies of handouts that have seen better days, and with limited access to supplies. Creative class projects are often funded out of the teachers’ own pockets, and their own families do without, so that their students can experience more than just the traditional “entra, copia y adios” model that permeates in so many schools. All of this in classrooms that leak water from the ceilings flood when it rains, and with temperatures that are so high that one can easily faint. These challenges in the population and working conditions are not new or unique among the public schools of Puerto Rico; sadly, they are all too common. And yet...the teachers show up, stand up to the challenges, and in their own way, say to the students who arrive, “I am here for you.”

When one studies to become a teacher, one is exposed to various theories of how children learn. One is taught to analyze the benefits of each, the approaches of each, and pit them against each other to determine which would, in fact, be the most effective in the classroom. These exercises are of course theoretical in nature, presuming in many ways that a basic foundation already exists. As the first semester in Facundo Bueso began, the one philosopher that came to mind the most was Abraham Maslow and his theory of the Hierarchy of Needs. It is a theory that looks into what motivates human beings. Administrators in education should understand and implement policies that help meet students’ most basic needs, so that teachers can concentrate on helping them construct the knowledge necessary to reach self-actualization.

What can a teacher ask of a student who has to walk from the Choliseo to Villa Palmera to get to school?

What can a teacher ask of a student who is faint from the heat in the classroom? What can a teacher ask of a student who has no food in his house? What can a teacher ask of a student living in a world of violence and who worries about being killed? These are just some of the real situations of the students of Facundo Bueso.

Beyond that, what can a teacher ask of a student whose existence has been so turbulent that he does not recognize peace or love? What can a teacher ask of a student who spends his nights crying for the mother he left behind in the Dominican Republic? Maslow’s theory indicates that meeting basic physiological and safety needs are the priority for humans, well before the psychological needs. So, if one has students struggling to meet those essential human needs, how does a teacher jump to the top of the pyramid and ask a student to be motivated to reach their highest potential?

Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis is one of the most important approaches to teaching students English as a Second Language. An English teacher in Puerto Rico must carefully consider how to lower a student’s affective filter, especially when he/she teaches a population like the one in Facundo Bueso.

Students who have faced challenges and difficulties, low academic achievement and learning disabilities, little to no stability outside of the school setting, and as a result demonstrate fragile self-esteem do not have affective filters; they have affective walls. A teacher trying to reach them has to do whatever

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possible to find a way around the wall, whether it is burrowing underground, climbing over, or just blowing it up. Also, a teacher has to prepare to see the wall fall apart in one class, and the following day find it back in place. Krashen’s work discusses the importance of motivation, self-confidence, and low anxiety in learning a second language. A teacher has to reflect on how to balance the curriculum, the core standards, and the human side of teaching that Krashen delineates as important to the learning process.

A great way to engage students so that they remain motivated is to structure lessons towards students’ own strengths, their own intelligences. That’s why Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences is so popular in education as a whole, and particularly successful in teaching students who perhaps have not experienced academic achievement in a traditional setting, and do not have confidence in their own abilities or who have “checked out.” The conventional methods of teaching are ineffective with these students. A teacher must observe how his or her students learn best, work successfully, and when they experience moments of triumph. Having observed what works, he or she must find ways to present lessons with methods that utilize students’ strengths in order to create more and more instances of success, so as to further motivate them, reinforce their (hopefully growing) sense of self-esteem, and continue lowering their anxieties about the class.

Of the seven intelligences that Gardner originally identified, interpersonal intelligence is by far the highest noted in the tenth grade students of Facundo Bueso. These students, despite the harsh realities of their pasts, are ultimately students of this generation, and work best collaborating together in groups.

The teachers consider this intelligence and employ creative projects that also promote visual-spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, and kinesthetic intelligence to reach them. Also, referencing Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, the class groups are constructed in a way that student leaders are placed throughout the student body so that they can model and help others. These student leaders motivate, explain, and guide their peers.

There are others, such as Ausubel, Waller, and Bronfenbrenner whose theories can be applied to determine the best approaches for teaching students from difficult populations. Considering Maslow, Krashen, Gardner, and Vygotsky only gives teachers a place to start.

Having worked in the first semester with writing simple children’s stories (integrating the use of technology) to identify conflict, reflecting on the nature of friendship, and the qualities of a good friend (integrating the use of art in the classroom), students responded well and grades improved over time when more artistic, non-traditional methods of evaluation were used. Seeking to integrate both the use of technology and the art in the classroom, the Create! Unit (Unit 5 of the 10th grade curricular map) was designed based on the creation of a Poetry Notebook Project with the hope that students who had shown increased proficiency and interest in the class would continue to further develop. The idea behind the project was for students to develop their voices as poets, find self-confidence and motivation as they created their first collection of poetry. It was expected that they would also continue improving their technological and writing skills, and continue growing in the language. The students would work on a series of structured poems at first, before finishing with a free verse poem of their imagination, for a total of ten poems. All of the poems were to be written in the classroom, so that the teacher, student leaders, and peers were available for support throughout the writing process. The project asks that in addition to writing poetry, they investigate a famous Spanish-speaking poet, and then design a PowerPoint presentation containing both their original work and the results of their investigation. The last part of the project also asked students to reflect on their experience writing the poems and complete a self-evaluation. Finally, the school would host a Poetry Reading so that students could share their work with their parents and guests.

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Puerto Rico Core Standards 10.W .3 - Write literary texts to develop real or imagined experiences or events, using literary elements and techniques.

10.W .4 - Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, editing (editing marks), rewriting, and publishing.

10.W .5 - Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish types of writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

10.S.3 - Use a variety of grade-appropriate and content-specific social, academic, college, and career ready words accurately and appropriately when giving speeches, presentations/performances to tell, retell, explain, and analyze stories and personal experiences with current/world events.

Transversal Themes: • Technology and Education • Self Discovery • Relationships

Objectives

• After analyzing various poem structures, the students willcreate a collection of at least ten poems.

• Having investigated a famous Spanish-speaking poet, the students will analyze the contribution of said poet in one to two written paragraphs.

• Having written ten poems, the students will design a PowerPoint presentation using a minimum of 15 slides.

• Upon concluding the project, the students will discuss their written work and experiences in a Poetry Reading School Activity for parents and guests.

Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Level 4: Create, Critique, Design Essential Questions •

How do we make meaning of poetry?

•

How do authors/writers express themselves through poetry?

Materials Board, Projector, Notebook, Pen/Pencil, Computer, Internet, Microsoft PowerPoint program, Cell Phones (for internet access to complete research in the classroom), Dictionary, Thesaurus, Coffee Filters, Markers, Yarn, and Clothespins

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Background Information The difficulties faced by the young people of Facundo Bueso are best highlighted through their academic development far below grade level. In English, over 90% of the students in tenth grade are at a pre-basic level. Knowing that if they were assigned a project of this magnitude with the instruction that they had to write everything in English from the start, they would quit before they had begun, and the progress of the first semester would be lost. Thus, a change was made to the way this project was originally conceived; they could integrate Spanish into their creative process. Meeting with the Spanish teacher, the overall project was designed to be two-fold; they would create a version in English as well as a version in Spanish, for grades in each class.

Students would be presented with the instructions and the structure of each poem in the English class, but they owned the choice of whether to write their initial draft in English or in Spanish. Surprisingly, given the safety of that buffer, many of them chose to try and write in English or at least attempt part of their verses in English. The students with a more limited vocabulary produced something viable in class, and maintained a sense of interest and excitement because their effort was still rewarded. They did not feel that it was a waste of their time or anxious that they did not know how to express what they wanted to communicate. It was a win/win class experience, further motivating them to keep working.

Spanish is not the enemy of the English class; it is a tool, a source of previous knowledge, which can lead to meaningful learning with limited proficient students, such as those of Facundo Bueso.

Procedure The project is designed to last twenty days in class, working on each of the poems for approximately one to two days. The investigation of the famous poet is completed outside of the classroom, as is the design of the PowerPoint presentation, due to a lack of Internet and computers in the school. The teacher that does have access to technology can complete those portions of the project within the classroom setting as well.

Students who did not know how to prepare a PowerPoint presentation were given individual workshops by the school librarian. If they did not have a computer or Internet access at home, they were permitted to use the one of the five available in the school library.

For their investigation, students were given a list of famous Spanish-speaking poets, and instructed to choose one who interested them to prevent the repetition of the same poet within one class group. The list of names spans centuries and countries of origin; the only commonality was that each poet’s primary language was Spanish. This was done so as to make the investigation pertinent to the students’ cultural background.

The Poetry Notebook consists of the following ten types of poems: • Bio-Poem • This poem is a structured poem. It is the first poem assigned so that students can quickly feel a sense of accomplishment by writing about them.

• The teacher modeled how to write the poem by creating one about herself in front of the group (see sample slides).

• The teacher also showed a Bio-poem created about a fictional character, Edward Cullen, as another example.

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• Diamond Poem • A Diamond poem is a seven-line poem that contrasts two opposing ideas. It appears shaped like a diamond when centered on a page. The format is creative, and has the added benefit of reinforcing grammar. Students have to create the poem using nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

• Found Poem • Students first create a list of one hundred words of their choice.

• Having completed the list, they then create a short poem about any topic. The only rule is that in creating the poem the only words on the list may be used. They cannot add any words. It is at the teacher’s discretion if they can change the tense. In this case, they were not able to make any changes.

• Another variation is that teachers give students categories of types of words, such as 20 nouns, 20 verbs, 10 prepositions, etc.

• Color Poem • Poetry often includes descriptions using the five senses. For this poem, students choose their favorite color, and then use their five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch) to describe the color by creating a series of similes.

• The purpose is to create an image for each of the five senses while practicing this figure of speech.

• Haiku Poems • A haiku is a traditional Japanese poem that uses only 17 syllables and evokes a single image of nature. Poems divide the 17 syllables into 3 verses: • Verse 1: Five syllables • Verse 2: Seven syllables • Verse 3: Five syllables •

It does NOT rhyme.

•

Students were asked to write three haikus so that they could practice syllable count.

• Alphabet Pyramid Poem •

Alphabet Pyramid poems are used to build vocabulary, as well as demonstrate creativity.

•

They are ten lines long, and each line corresponds to the letter of the alphabet

•

Students practice using a dictionary and a thesaurus to look for synonyms.

•

The format is as follows: • Line 1- Choose one word. It can be a noun, verb, or adjective, but preferably a noun.

This will be the topic of the poem.

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• Line 2- Choose two words related to the topic with the letter of the alphabet that follows the word in line one.

• Line 3- Choose three words related to the topic with the letter of the alphabet that follows the words in line two.

•

This pattern continues until you have reached the 10th line.

Accommodations can be made for special education students as to the number of verses that must be written.

• Newspaper “Blackout” Poem • “Blackout” poetry is created when one selects key words in a newspaper/ magazine article and “black out” the rest. Those words form the poem. The only rule is that one cannot change the order of the words!

•

Materials: Newspaper article, a black sharpie, and imagination!

• “My World” Poem • Materials: Coffee filter, permanent markers, a Styrofoam plate, and one’s imagination!

• Prior to writing the poem, the students will complete an artistic activity.

• Directions: After choosing the colors to be used, the students will begin coloring the coffee filters.

Students are reminded to be careful with the use of the markers. The colors will run a bit and create an Impressionist effect.. Hang to dry. This usually takes one class period, and the students will write the poem in the following class.

• The coffee filter is symbolic of the student’s planet, as are the colors chosen. Remind students that colors have meaning. The goal is to create something that represents the student and his/her world.

• Use the artwork as the inspiration for the poem.

• Free-verse • I Am... Poem • Poets often use repetition to emphasize something, whether that is a quality or an image. In this poem students will use repetition to emphasize qualities about a topic. The poem can have any tone the student chooses- funny, sad, personal, etc.

• Remind students to think about the mood they want to create in the person reading their poems.

• This poem is structured with a specific format of four stanzas and 18 verses that students will follow.

• Art Poem •

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Poem #10 will be inspired by a famous work of art!

•

Free verse

•

Students will choose a work of art or a photograph and use it as their inspiration.

•

They should include the artwork in their Project.

For each poem written, the students must complete a short reflection of one to three sentences describing their experience creating the individual poem. This may be done in class or at home.

The final part of the project is a self-evaluation of their overall experience. Students are asked to write one to two paragraphs where they must answer the following four questions: •

What did I learn in this unit?

•

What areas can I improve on?

•

In preparing this portfolio, what did I learn about myself?

•

What doubts/questions do I still have?

Reflection is an important part of the learning process, and essential for English language learners, as they measure their successes, large and small, as well as their areas of opportunity. It also allows teachers to see what is working and what should be changed for future lessons.

The final project is worth 200 points, divided into the following categories: 1.

100 points for the poems (10 points per poem and reflection)

2.

30 points presentation

3.

50 points famous Spanish poet assignment

4.

20 points introduction/final reflection

To celebrate the students’ successes, a Poetry Reading presentation will be organized, so that students can invite their parents and guests to see their achievements in the English class. Students will present a selection of their poems to the school community.

Evidence of Students’ Work The following are photos of the students’ PowerPoint presentations in process, as the project is still ongoing.

Found Poem Welcome, I am the pilot, Victor.

Relax I have the control

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Students’ Feedback: Example of a reflection about of the completed poems “In this project you will find all 10 poems I have made in the English calss. I workd ard on them and tried to make them good. This project is very good. I love that is kind of easy. I also loved that is creative and makes you think.”

Final Reflection In eight years of teaching I have never taken part in a series of workshops as helpful to my development as those of this proposal. They were quite simply on another level. Teachers are so often shipped to professional development activities as a requirement for federal funding, but the material is not pertinent, particularly for English teachers, who have to take many faculty workshops in Spanish. Also, those few which attempt to provide helpful activities that teachers could use immediately in their classrooms are often geared towards the elementary level. High school English teachers in Puerto Rico are so often left in the wind.

This was NOT the case with Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills Through Art and Technology. When I heard about this proposal from one of the English facilitators, I quickly told every English teacher I knew. I did not regret it. From day one the project has been well-organized in every aspect. Professors were committed to giving us the knowledge and tools to make us better teachers. Communication was easy to manage through email. The workshops all had great topics, especially the summer workshops. To me, the three weeks of “summer school” were engaging, pertinent, and fun. I felt so excited thinking of what I could do once the school year began. That’s how the majority of the participants felt, and there was great energy throughout the entire experience.

This was my first year as a public school teacher, and I am absolutely certain that this proposal helped me design my class in a way that reached my new students in Facundo Bueso. Without my participation, I believe that I would not have had as successful a first semester as I did. Prior to this year, I have taught English in private schools whose students were essentially fully bilingual, and so I never really had the experience of being an English as a Second Language teacher. Unfortunately, for many of the reasons I previously discussed, my students in the public system are the total opposite. So, in many ways, I experienced this school year as a novice teacher, yet I felt excited and motivated to use new ways to teach the English language that I love.

I highly, highly, recommend this Project; all English teachers should be given the opportunity to participate in a proposal as effective as this one. If the rules change, and current participants are invited to take part in a Section II of the Proposal, I will be the first to sign up. Kudos!

References To find engaging pictures for my presentation, and to show students how to put together a dynamic PowerPoint presentation the following references were utilized: Google images, Pinterest.com Raza, A. (2017). 35 most famous paintings of all time. Retrieved from http://wisetoast.com/35-most-famous-paintings-of-all-times/ Tumblr.com List of Spanish poets was created together with the assistance of 10th grade Spanish teacher, Zuleika Moya.

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It’s a Mystery Michele Munich

Introduction: “Boy, Was I Wrong!”

Once you graduate from college, you believe there is nothing else you will have to study, review, or learn new again. Boy, was I wrong! Students nowadays learn differently from students in my time. As teachers you need to pay attention to your students’ behaviors and needs in the classroom. That was the main reason of accepting to be part of this Project. The name of the Project, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills through Art and Technology, was really inviting, not to forget the appealing benefits the English facilitator mentioned to lure me in!

In reality, students have a total different interests about what, when, where, and how they should learn.

It does not matter their economic situation or status; they just do not find learning as appealing as it used to be, at least not through books or school. Students desire active and different entertaining ways of teaching to get them engaged and interested, instead of boring lessons in the path of learning. As I confirmed throughout this Project, that art and technology together are the best ways to have active and entertaining classes for 21st century students so they can achieve better English language skills.

There are thousands of ways to integrate either art or technology or even both at the same time with whatever your lesson is at the moment. Just put creativity and imagination together and you will get amazing results. So far, I have used a few ideas myself from the Project. I just adapted some a little!

My 12th grade students did an Irregular Verbs PowerPoint Presentation using only pictures. I divided the group in half. Due to the large amount of verbs, it is better to work with a lot of people. They demonstrated on three picture slides the action of the verb. They had a blast just by preparing all the poses! On the day of the presentation, they also needed to say the present and past of the verbs. At the end, they shared their bloopers! Also, the 12th graders worked on My Career Presentation. They did a career information research, looked for career-related interviews on YouTube and places where they can go study their careers. Afterwards, they created a Pictures and Words Career Collage that was used for their oral presentation.

On the other hand, with my 11th graders, I decided to create a lesson using music. The idea was to get them to speak. I am having a difficult time with their oral presentations; so I came up with an oral presentation project, Let’s Sing Together. I worked this one in pairs with a few exceptions with one or three students for a differentiated instruction strategy. First, they needed to interview each other to decide a singer of English speaking songs to choose from. Of course, I listened to some Spanish at the beginning, but then they needed to do research on the singer, such as the singer’s real name, date of birth, something that the singer had done specially, and pick a song. Second, the student needed to read the song, and verify if it was an acceptable song to be listened to and sung in the classroom. Once that was done, the students would answer first, What was the song about? and What was the message it delivered? After getting all this information, they created a poster where they wrote a brief biography about the singer and the answers to the two questions. After they got prepared for the presentation, they

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needed to have the lyrics of the song for all their classmates and download the song on their cellphones.

On the day of the presentation each group handed out the lyrics of their chosen song, then presented first the singer and song information (around 30 to 40 seconds) and then with the song over a speaker, everyone had to Let’s Sing Together! The whole classroom sang the song, since everyone had the lyrics.

They enjoyed this activity a lot! It was fun and different. As a teacher, with this activity I was putting into practice the following strategies, concepts, and skills: cooperative learning, listening and speaking skills, research, creativity, technology use, leadership, just to mention a few. We all had a lot of fun!

11th & 12th grade- Puerto Rico Core Standards 1. Contribute to class, and group discussions, sustaining conversations on a variety of appropriate and relevant academic, social, college, and career topics by asking and answering relevant, on topic questions, affirming others, providing additional relevant information, paraphrasing, and evaluating/analyzing/synthesizing key ideas.

2. Analize how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and develop the plot.

3. Write a mystery short story of their choice to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, and well-structured sequences.

Unit 11.4: It’s a Mystery Performance task: Most Wanted Ad, Mystery Short Story, and Mystery Story Triorama Display Objectives: During this Unit, the 21st century student will: 1. listen and respond during a read aloud 2. analyze setting and character 3. appreciate mystery (detective) fiction genre, integrating art with literature.

4. demonstrate an ability to write expository pieces showing different points of view, in addition to the importance of setting and cause and effect in this genre.

5. identify new words and review vocabulary.

6. compare mystery fictional texts.

7. use displays and oral language skills to present an original mystery short story.

Materials

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•

Triorama display story

•

scissors

•

character’s templates

•

glue (UHU)

•

markers, crayons

•

color pencils

•

string

•

glitter / glitter glue

•

cardboard, poster board, folder

Time lapse This Unit will have a total of fifteen fifty minute lessons (50 minutes /15 lessons).

Lesson 1 – Unit Theme Introduction Topic Introduction: It’s a Mystery “Tea Party activity” for topic introduction and vocabulary review Objective: Before the activity, each student will: •

create a tea cup, design a tic-tac-toe picture board, or a tea cup fill-in-the blank table sheet.

Procedure Students will make sure to have tic-tac-toe picture boards (with different pictures related to the topic, mixed) for about 6 to 10 groups. Students will be divided into three per group Each student will have a blank sheet of paper for the fill-in-the blank exercise, or a tea cup sheet. On the paper, the student will create a fill-in-the blank table as follow: Guess the topic? Tea Party I think the topic is...

After looking at board #1: _______________ After looking at board #2: _______________ After looking at board #3: _______________ The topic is...___________________________

___ Guess it

___ NOT Guess it

• Using a tic-tac-toe board with different mystery related images; the teacher will let the students look at the tic-tac-toe board for 40 seconds. Give them 5 to 10 seconds to fill the first line. Switch the tic-tac-toe board to another group of students, and repeat everything twice. Collect the tic-tac-toe boards. Paste one by one on the board while asking, “What is it?” with each picture. This will lead to vocabulary review, in addition to most students guessing the topic by themselves.

Lesson 2 – Mystery Short Story Read Aloud Mystery Short Story read aloud and discussion Objectives: After reading aloud, students will: •

find clues

•

make predictions

•

determine the actual situation

•

state the beginning – climax – denouement

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•

identify cause and effect

Procedure 1.

The mystery short story brought to the class by the teacher should be one page.

2.

Teacher will began to read aloud, students will continue to read.

3. While reading the story, the class discussion will go hand on hand. Predictions will get into place.

Lesson 3 – Most Wanted Ad Objective: After reading and discussing a mystery short story, students will: •

create a Most Wanted ad to be presented in front of the class.

Procedure Groups of three to four students will read and discuss a mystery short story. In addition, each group will create a “Most Wanted Ad” per story. The mystery short story brought for each group should be one page only.

Lesson 4 - Most Wanted Ad - Oral Presentations Objective: After creating a “Most Wanted Ad” per story, each group will: •

present its Most Wanted Ad.

Lesson 5 - Creating your Mystery Short Story Objectives: •

During the lesson, students will:

•

create a mystery short story.

• develop a short series of actions and characters with cause and effect that lead to solving a mystery.

•

include a crime, investigation, crime solver, and suspects.

Procedure 1. Groups of three to four students will create a mystery short story of their choice to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques and well-structured sequences.

2. Each member is assigned a task: characters, setting, crime, and crime solver. A good mystery includes: details, alibis, character motivation, and a list of clues, which each group of students will include.

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Lesson 6 & 7 - Creating your Mystery Short Story: 1st Draft Objective: During the lesson, each group of students will: •

write the first draft and edit its mystery short story.

Procedure Each group will work on its first draft. Students will check the setting, characters, crime, investigation, crime solver, suspects, details, alibis, character motivation, and clues of its mystery short story. If time allows, students will edit their work.

Lesson 8 - Creating your Mystery Short Story: Final Draft Objective: During the lesson, each group of students will: •

edit and write the final draft of its mystery short story.

Procedure Students will add, change, improve, and or arrange everything that is needed in the mystery short story.

They will complete the final writing. Once the story is finished, the students will get ready for the next class by and bring all materials to begin creating the triorama story display.

Lessons 9 to 13 - Creating your Mystery Short Story: Display Construction Objectives: During the lesson, each group of students will: •

create its Mystery Short Story Triorama Display

•

draw or use templates for the different display sides.

Procedure • Each group will work on the trioramas. Each triorama must have three displays: beginning, climax, and denouement. Students will work on one display side each day, up to two days per side.

•

Students will create, draw, or use templates for the different display sides.

Lesson 14 & 15 - Creating your Mystery Short Story: Oral Presentations Objectives: During the lesson, each group of students will: •

present orally its Mystery Short Story and their Displays

•

read its story to the class.

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Procedure Each group will use the display to present the images in the trioramas while reading the mystery short story to the rest of the class.

Reection These were some of the activities I learned to put into practice. Indeed, I have gotten many ideas from this amazing Project. Others have been just adaptations or even mix matching a few. So far I have had a wonderful experience. I have met new friends, learned many new things, and received useful information for my professional development. I can tell my students are enjoying the English class as much as I do. Everything all the professors have taught in each of the workshops, such as the information, techniques, and advice given us have been incredible. Each one of them have touched every single one of us. Overall, I could say that for some teachers it will be easy integrating art and technology in their English classrooms, especially art. For others, it will take time to get used to, but we should not lose our perspective, our students. Most importantly, for the meaningful and wonderful learning experience our students will get makes this Project very valuable. Boy, was I wrong!

Thanks Zorivette, the secretary, for all your patience with all of us. Thanks to all the professors involved in this project. They have been wonderful! Last but not least, thanks to Dr. Elsie Candelaria for treating us as equals and showing us UBD and all the different ways to deal with the Department of Education, directors, facilitators, and supervisors.

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Creating a Journal Portfolio Juan Yllescas Hernández

Introduction My Two-Cent Reflection on the Project, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners I will say a few words about the Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners, which took place at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras from June to December 2016. However, I must first congratulate the staff of professors: Dr. Elsie Candelaria, Dr. Anibal Muñoz, Dr. Cristina Guerra, and Dr. Marielis Sexto for their efforts, professionalism, and commitment to teaching ESL teachers. I would also like to congratulate Dr. Annette López, Director of the Project, for her invaluable time spent with this professional development proposal. Last but not least, I would like to congratulate Zorivette Meléndez Serrano, secretary of the Project, whose patience never ran low and who has always been available to help us. To her, my sincerest thanks. The quality and endeavor of their work have motivated me to continue trying to reach my full potential as an ESL teacher.

Perhaps the best piece of advice that I received came from Dr. Muñoz when he said that we had to learn to “dodge the bullet,” and that we had to be resilient in our line of work. Between the amount of administrative work that we must spend in dealing with lesson planning, working in different committees, and the disruptive behavior of some students who are professionals at derailing our classes, all we must do is hang on to our dear lives and come back the next day with more energy. Our emphasis should be on why this activity or that strategy did or did not work, and how we can improve ourselves. We need the support of principals and parents, and our communities at large, to succeed in our professional endeavors.

One of the activities that my students enjoyed was the Journal Portfolio. They spent a few hours working on this project and for the most part, the students shared time among themselves and relieved the tensions of the rigors of the English class. Instructions were given in English, such as due dates and a

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list of materials. Although the process took more time than what I had planned, the students produced beautiful work and felt proud of the results. These portfolios were created so that they were used in actual journals written in Spanish, as part of an activity designed in our team following the instructions of the Circular Letter #12, about Modelo Ecléctico de las Comunidades Profesionales de Aprendizaje (MECPA), which emphasized the strategies involving the teaching and learning of Spanish as a national goal. The students created their journals and inserted them in their own portfolios, which in turn were presented to their own homeroom teachers so they could be proofread. We should notice that most of the rules of grammar in our national vernacular have a direct impact on the English language, being these different or the same. The objective, therefore, is twofold, and that is to improve the students’ skills in Spanish as well as in English. If there is something negative about this activity, it is not about the activity per se, but about the passivity of some students who wanted me to do the portfolio for them. So, I encouraged them by telling them that it was difficult for me, too, thus, a few more students felt confident to finish their work.

Puerto Rico Core Standards: 7th and 8th grade ESL teacher 7.L.1 Listen and collaborate with peers during social and academic interactions in class, group, and partners’ discussions in read-alouds, oral presentations, a variety of grade-appropriate topics.

7.LA.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of the English language.

7.R.10 Read and comprehend a variety of informational texts: technical texts.

Objectives: During the project students will: •

follow instructions to make a Journal Portfolio.

•

demonstrate the command of the English language.

•

comprehend a technical text on how to create a Journal Portfolio.

•

create a Journal Portfolio.

Initial Activities The professor greets the students. He explains that they are going to start making a Journal Portfolio.

The professor assigns students by using the students’ grouping pencils.

Development The professor shows pictures and the process of making the portfolios using regular, letter folders. Then the professor creates a model and shows it to the students in their groups. The students begin the activity while he walks around the groups providing support.

Closing The students put away their materials. They will continue the following day. The teacher closes the learning activity.

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Students reactions to this activity At first, most students felt confused about the idea of creating Journal Portfolios for the MECPA objective that included the mechanics of paragraph writing in Spanish and English. The professor allowed the students to come up with their own conclusions about the similarities of Spanish and English; there were topics, such as mechanics: capital letters, lowercase letters, and punctuation at the end of the sentences.

The writing process was another similarity they discussed. They felt like all the subjects in our school were “almost the same.” This bottom up approach allowed the students to create their own knowledge in the process. At the end, the students were aware that they made mistakes in the mechanics of both languages and realized that they had to pay more attention to them in the future.

The students were elated to engage in the activity of the Journal Portfolios. Most students brought the materials requested, and those who did not bring them were integrated within the groups and shared all their materials.

The professor gave step-by-step instructions about how to make a Journal Portfolio. He showed pictures of the process and made one in front of them. Some students did not know what to do at the beginning, but were encouraged to keep on trying.

Reflection The Project, Enticing ESL Students to Acquire Communicative Competence through Art and Technology, has provided me with a wealth of strategies and activities that must be tested in my classroom. Some of them will not work and some will. I know that I have to work harder to bring joy to my students, and joy will bring learning. I feel motivated to continue working towards those goals now that I feel more prepared professionally and academically after spending a wonderful Summer and Fall with very serious and talented professionals in the field of English as a Second Language in Puerto Rico.

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10.4 My World Nedynia López Introduction For 25 years I have been a teacher of the Department of Education of Puerto Rico. Each year is one of many challenges due to the generational gap. I am dealing with 21st Century students who are totally different and have a different way of learning. As teachers, we have to be updated in technology to be able to reach them. Another difficulty I think we have as educators is that they are natives in technology and expect us to have all our classes like if it was a video game or with all the visual effects of a movie, if not, they get bored easily. Due to their poor reading habits, it is very difficult for them to visualize images when they are reading.

A strategy I have used in all my years as a teacher has been “learn by doing,” suggested by John Dewey (1916), and integrating it with constructivism. Actually my groups are all different. I have two groups of only 19 students, one of 31 students, and two of 25-28 students. I have to mention that neither do they have the same learning intelligence nor the same level of knowledge. Thanks to this Project, Professional Development for English teachers of the 21st Century, I have been able to open my world to many other techniques that have been very helpful for my teaching and my students.

The thematic unit I am planning to work on is Unit 10.4 – My World. This unit will be worked through art, literacy, verbal communication, and technology in a cooperative learning strategy. The reform strategy my school is using is Cooperative Learning integrating technology.

10th grade- Puerto Rico Core Standards 10.L.1c Listen, respond to, and react/analyze complex instructions and statements; apply, clarify, and provide instructions and directions.

10.S.6 Plan and deliver a variety of oral presentations and reports on developmentally appropriate topics that present evidence and facts to support ideas using growing understanding of formal and informal registers.

10.R.5l Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims (positions) are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or portions of an available informational text (e.g., essays, reports, and news articles).

10.W .2 Write informational and argumentative texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the selection, organization (transitional words, phrases or sentences), and analysis of content through essays ( paragraphs), letters ( formal and informal business letters and cover letters), and other text types.

10LA.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

Objectives: • Students will interview their parents.

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• Students will research the decade in which his/her parents were in high school.

• Students will write articles for an imaginative newspaper.

• Students will give an oral presentation giving their section from their imaginative newspaper.

Materials: • Laptop, internet, magic markers, templates, pencils, rulers Core Values: • Creativity: the students will have the opportunity to create different visual representations of different writing prompts and other activities, such as taking pictures, downloading pictures, etc.

• Leadership: While working in groups, students will show initiative, communication skills, and organizational skills to be able to complete different tasks.

• Diversity: With the oral presentations and discussions, each student will be exposed to the different outcomes of the students.

Background Information: I assigned the reading “How to Write a Letter,” Keillor, G. (2000). Timeless Voices. Prentice- Hall. (p.

107). After working the vocabulary, and the reading of the selection, the teacher assigned an imaginative newspaper to different groups and different sections. This reading was selected to teach students how to write a letter effectively. In the imaginative newspaper the following sections will be included: • News: Report special events that are happening in school.

• Sports: Interview the physical education teacher or the participants of the basketball /volleyball teams.

• Arts: Talk to the Art teacher and ask permission to photograph students’ works for the newspaper.

• Cartoons: Draw or download images from the Internet.

• Weather: Include a forecast of the week; • Letter to the Editor: Write a letter to the school director and mention a school problem affecting students in their daily performance.

Time for this activity: Two weeks • Week #1 Day #1 – Students will read, “How to Write a Letter” by Keillor, G. (2000), silently. Throughout the selection, students will write down the meaning of the words they do not know.

Day #2 – Students will read the selection aloud. The teacher will discuss the reading with the students.

The teacher will also give a review on the parts of a letter.

Day #3 – Students will answer the questions and check the section on Comprehension and Critical Thinking on page 110 of the textbook, Timeless Voices.

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Day #4- On this day, the teacher will explain and hand in all the rubrics for their final evaluation. First, the teacher will divide the class in groups of three. In each group there will be a writer, a speaker, and an artist. Student will decide their roles in the group and what part of the newsletter they will be working on. The teacher will assign the order in which students will give their oral presentations.

Day #5 – They will start working on the selection of the newspaper. The teacher will provide each group with a template in which they can work their draft paper.

• Week #2 Day #1 Students will continue their work.

Day #2 Students will print out their work in the classroom’s printer. Students will start preparing their work to be posted on brown paper.

Day # 3 Students will be able to have an oral presentation of each part of their imaginative newspaper.

Day # 4 Students will continue to present.

Day # 5 Students will have a variety of discussions based on the different outcomes of the news exposed from each group.

My Experience in the Proposal, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners Thanks to my colleague, Irma Torres, who told me about the workshops in this Project, I was able to attend the summer workshops offered in June 2016. I filled out the application and received an email telling me I was accepted in the program, which made me very happy. When the first day of class arrived, I was very nervous, anxious, and excited. I can say that all my expectations were fulfilled. I met the professors which were excellent, not only as professionals, but also as human beings. Each day was one full of surprises and of opportunities to grow in knowledge. I really appreciated these workshops, since I have been a teacher for over 25 years. It is wonderful to receive a boost of energy and motivation from time to time. I have to mention that it is not common to receive opportunities like this one in which you receive materials, workshops, and stipends.

As soon as August started, I put everything into practice at school. I took pictures of the activities I did with my kids in school. In each activity I saw their enthusiasm and interest in learning. Now the only problem that I have is that they are always expecting something new, but thanks to the materials received in the workshops, I can fulfill their needs. I have always considered myself a creative teacher due to the reality each teacher encounters in the public school. I do not talk for myself; I truly believe that every teacher in Puerto Rico has to be creative to be able to deal with the necessities of our students. I am very grateful to have been part of this proposal. I now feel I have grown as a teacher. My life has gone through beautiful moments with my colleagues and professors. I deeply encourage proposals like this one to be offered more often.

References Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. NY: Macmillan.

Keillor, G. (2000). How to write a letter. In Timeless Voices (p. 107) NY: Prentice- Hall.

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Knowing Puerto Rico: The Taino Culture Berta Teresa Rosa Siurano

Introduction My Unique Chance of Being Part of the English Project My dream as a teacher is to have a classroom with children that want to learn and are engaged in their process of learning. This may be a beautiful process if a teacher utilizes the right strategies to capture her students’ attention and best of all, capture their commitment in this process. You are the person in charge of motivating and engaging them in the wonderful task of their every day learning. I feel the same way as Kanisha Rosario Ramos when she says it is a dream to have a classroom with no more than 15 students and with the same learning intelligence and the same level of knowledge. However, I differ from her in that the children do not have to have the same learning intelligence, because this is what we need in the world, people with different learning intelligences so that the world we live in have people who can do different things in a different way.

I have been a teacher with a transit position for over nine years, but this year I was one of the privileged ones who obtained a permanent status in the 21st century elementary school named Dr. Hiram González in the city of Bayamón. I was so glad I was assigned to this school, which has a bilingual program, but was named as a regular teacher, not a bilingual teacher. I have worked in private schools as an English teacher all my life in Pre-kinder, Kindergarten, and different grade levels before making the change to work in the public schools. I was a little sad because I thought this was a big chance for me to be a bilingual teacher; nevertheless, I am happy to be a teacher on a permanent basis as a third grade teacher.

I know some day I will obtain a bilingual position and I know this thought will never leave my soul.

My students come from a very tough and challenging community, but compared to what I went through last year teaching a Multigrade with first, second, and third grade all together in a classroom, it is much better considering I have only one grade in which to focus on this year. I was not given the bilingual position, but what I did was integrate what I learned in the workshops of the Project, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners: Enhancing Communicative Skills through Art and Technology, with my third graders.

I am integrating the strategies using art that Profesor Marielis Sexto taught the reading comprehension strategies that Professor Christina Guerra taught us. I give thanks to Professor Guerra who is so sweet and lovable, and I wish I were like her. I will never forget her, because she really inspired me to be

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considerate with my students and look at them in a way in which they feel loved and welcomed in my class. I will also integrate the technology learned from Professor Anibal Muñoz, such as Moviemaker, idiomatic expressions, authentic videos and music for creative writing, as well as documentaries in the ESL classroom. Professor Elsie Candelaria is another professor who I thank for explaining to us Understanding by Design (UBD). I am grateful for Zorivette. She was always there for us when we needed our PowerPoint presentations, letters, and our lunch. My students definitely are going to be influenced with the strategies I learned in these workshops, as long as I am permitted to apply them in my school.

I am also collaborating with the English teacher, Mrs. Rivera, who teaches my students. She also attends two third grades, one-second grade, and two kindergarten groups. We have arranged for her to use the materials I was given at these workshops, such as Flat Stanley by exposing the children to speak English in front of the classroom. I think that the strategies that I have learned here will help all the children who attend the school. I know my children have a rough life and are surrounded by a harsh community, but I will do my best to enhance their learning every way I can.

In my thematic units, I plan to integrate the strategies learned at the workshops in my curriculum maps units: Language Acquisition _

Conozco a Puerto Rico (Knowing Puerto Rico)

_

Puerto Rico es poesía (Puerto Rico is poetry)

_

Los cuentos folklóricos (Folkloric stories)

_

Lo real y lo imaginario (Real and Imaginary)

Science _

Representaciones de modelos (Representation Models)

_

El agua, el suelo, y el clima (Water, Soil, and Climate)

_

Los organismos y el ambiente (Organisms and the environment)

The strategies using art that I learned in the workshops are going to be integrated in all my academic classes, such as language acquisition, math, and science, in an intent to engage my third graders to love what they are learning.

I will continue to integrate all strategies learned in the school I was reassigned to in the month of January 2017. Now I am working as a first grade teacher in the city of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico in Ernestina Bracero.

School The community I work now in is in a rural area. My children come from Candelaria Arenas, the neighborhood near the school. In my classroom, I have 17 kids, and from those six are from Special Education.

Puerto Rico Core Standards _ 3.AO.CC.1- Students participate effectively in a variety of groups discussions about readings and assigned themes (group and pair work) _

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3.AO.CC.1C- Students explain their own ideas based on the discussion theme

_

3.LF.4- Students read with enough fluidity to comprehend

_

3.LF.FRP.3- Students know and apply phonetic concepts and skills to analyze grade level words

_ 3.E.PE.5- Students write, revise and edits their work to clarify ideas, use grammar, accentuation, spelling, punctuation, capital letters and types of sentences appropriate for grade level Objectives: _ After reading the story, “Areyto en el Batey”, children will identify words of the Taíno language, social organization, and women’s role in the Taíno society. _

Children will learn the Taíno vocabulary and find their meaning.

Background information My students come from a high poverty level and with very few opportunities to learn in a way the great experience that this project has brought to our lives. My purpose is to expose them to all kinds of learning activities in a form that is attractive to them. It will be one that they will never forget if it was not for me to be part of this project where I learned innovative ways of teaching my students.

Procedure _

First Phase • Skills, content, vocabulary, and a historic period of the island of Puerto Rico • Unit 3.2: Conozco a Puerto Rico, included a performance task called, “Areyto en el Batey”, where children were going to learn about the Taíno culture.

• Vocabulary • Where did the Taíno live?

• What was their way of living?

• What was their social organization?

• What is a Cemi?

_

Second Phase • We worked the performance task in two weeks from October 26 to November 10, 2016.

• The performance task is an assessment strategy to evaluate the children’s reading comprehension of the text, “Areyto en el Batey”, where they worked on the vocabulary from Taíno origin and the meaning of these words. First, students had an illustration of the word, then at the bottom of the illustration, the children had to write the word so it could have pertinence for them. The performance task included the Taíno woman’s social organization, and what the sun, the wind, and the Cemi meant to the Taínos. Students also had to draw a picture of the plot of the story, and read and write sentences using capital letters, and correct grammar and punctuation.

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_

Third phase • Elaborate the scrapbook, “Areyto en el Batey”.

Evidence of students’ work

Students’ Feedback When we started working on this project, students seemed happy and expressed they loved art and arts and crafts. As a teacher, I can recall my students’ faces and can say they enjoyed every step of the way when they were exposed to arts and crafts. I also asked them how they felt and they told me they wanted more art included in the classes.

Materials The equipment used in these lesson plans are going to be accessible to teachers so they have an effect on the population in our school.

This section includes information about books, websites, applications, and other sources used.

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1.

Flat Stanley book series

2.

Big Organizers

3.

Venn Diagram display mats

4.

Answering pallets

5.

Documentation obtained from our professors: • Poetry book, Read around display, Flip book, Flip flaps, Taino symbol page, Book award, Trailers and movies for the ESL classroom, About Me Gazette for English teachers

Final reflection As many of you, I ask myself why am I here? Well, let me tell you that I have worked as an English teacher for twelve years in a private school in Dorado. I taught all the subjects in English from Pre- Kindergarten, Kindergarten to first grade.

I am a teacher who loves to study so when a beloved friend told me about the Project, I asked her if I could apply. She gave me the phone number and information needed. I thank her very much, since what I learned here will be with me throughout my working experience as a teacher. Deep inside my heart I know that this is the beginning of a lot of changes that I will make in my classroom and in my classroom management. By integrating all the strategies learned and empowering my students with the knowledge they should have, I will make them independent human beings who are able to make wise choices and succeed in life.

I can not leave before mentioning my beloved teacher, Cristina Guerra, again. She really inspired me to demonstrate love to my students first, and after that teach them what they need to learn. Thank you for your respect, dedication, and most of all for your love. I will never forget you and I hope to see you one day and say that you also were my teacher. I wish I was like you, because when you speak and teach, you touch the souls of your students like you did with us. Thank you for being so special and gentle to all of us teachers.

Thank you colleagues and professors for giving us this unique chance of being part of the University of Puerto Rico and the workshops for English teachers. I will always remember you, and most of all I will keep on working on the strategies learned with my students no matter what grade level I am assigned to or in what language I am told to teach. Collaborative learning, cooperative learning, technology, integrating art to academic classes, and being innovative are valuables tools a teacher will always treasure, because they are the tools to make our students succeed in school and as individuals in life.

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Immigration and Emmigration

Maribel Collazo

Introduction Colegio Calados is a small school, but do not let that fool you. We have big hearts and interest towards our students’ learning. Our school is a non-traditional school that believes that children are the center of learning and that they learn by doing. We are located in an urban area in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Our school is full of teachers who encourage students and give our maximum effort to our classes everyday.

We believe in constructivism, with an eclectic approach, taking into consideration theorists, such as Montessori, Gardner, and Dewey in our teaching practices. We integrate music, reading, and the arts in all the classes we offer. I believe that we should provide a variety of ways students could demonstrate their knowledge. I also believe that students learn by imitating, repeating, manipulating, constructing, dancing, mimicking, and creating. Most definite of all, students learn by playing when they feel confident with the teacher.

The group I chose to present this project is fifth grade, which has a magical number of only six students, a plus for the learning environment. The Unit chosen is titled Crossing Between Cultures, because it is in the textbook we use. The main topics worked in this Unit were Immigration and Emigration.

Amongst the skills we worked with were using complete sentences, comparing and contrasting, character development, vocabulary, analyzing, asking and answering questions, using text evidence to support opinions, critical thinking, and cooperative work.

Lesson Plan Unit: Crossing Between Cultures Theme: Immigration and Emigration Puerto Rico Common Core Standards and Expectations •

Listening

5.L. 1 Listen and interact with peers during group participation and oral presentations.

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Listen attentively, stay focused, ask/answer detailed questions, and express appropriate reasons about personal experience and text using complete sentences and correct grammar to express opinions or to clarify positions.

•

Speaking

5.S.1 Contribute to class, group, and partner discussions by following rules, asking and answering questions, and adding relevant information.

5.S.4 Negotiate with or persuade others in conversations using grade-appropriate vocabulary as well as open responses to provide counter-arguments.

•

Reading

5.R.2 Use in-depth critical reading of a variety of relevant texts, genres, and viewing of multimedia (when accessible) to describe, explain, and evaluate ideas, phenomena, processes, cultural identity, and relationships, referring to details in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. Recognize fact vs. opinion and fiction vs. nonfiction as well as facts/ supporting details from the texts.

5.R .3 L. Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

• Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

5. R.4. I Compare and contrast the same event or topic in informational texts; describe the differences in focus and the information provided.

5.R. 10 Read and comprehend literature from Puerto Rico and other cultures, including stories, dramas, and poetry, and informational texts (e.g., history/social studies, science, and technical texts) of appropriate complexity.

• Writing 5. W . 3 Write descriptive paragraphs to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, clear event sequences, and using transitional words and other cohesive devices to better organize writing.

5.W . 7 Draw evidence from literary and informational text.

• Language 5.LA.1 Demonstrate command of English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. a. Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments and run-ons.

5. LA.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

•

Use correct punctuation.

•

Spell words correctly, consulting references materials like dictionaries as needed.

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5.LA.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and content-specific words and phrases, including those that signal contrast, addition, and other logical relationships (e.g., however, although, nevertheless, similarly, moreover, in addition).

Objectives: Throughout the activities of Unit 1 the students will: 1. listen, interact and contribute with peers during group participation and oral presentations.

2. negotiate and/or persuade others by providing good reasoning about the topic.

3. use critical thinking to analyze a situation.

4. evaluate ideas to create an ideal city.

5. describe in depth a character in a story.

6. explain events and ideas, drawing evidence from a text.

7. read and comprehend literature of appropriate complexity.

8. write descriptive paragraphs.

9. produce complete sentences while using correct punctuation, capitalization and spelling.

10. acquire and use general academic and content-specific vocabulary.

Background Information Throughout this Unit, I wanted the students to use the English language in various fun and engaging ways.

Most of my students love drawing and creating, so of course, this was integrated in our Unit. We worked with a topic, pertinent to this time and place. Puerto Rico is losing citizens every day, and this affects our country. This Unit allowed us to work with so many skills, all with pertinence and with a touch of fun and not pure ‘work’. This provided a lot of opportunities for my six students to demonstrate their knowledge, regardless of the English level they are in. All of them were part of this successful Unit.

Activities _

First we brainstormed ideas.

_

On day one, we got to know each other by completing and sharing an All-About-Me Robot.

_

On day 2, we began our Unit by introducing/studying key vocabulary words. We created foldup tabs.

_ On day 3 we did exclusion brainstorming, using vocabulary and non-vocabulary words, and recalling the meaning of each word.Then, the students learned about subject, predicate, and complete sentences. They also answered essential questions in pairs for this Unit. The questions were, Do people immigrate to Puerto Rico? Do people leave Puerto Rico? Why do you think so? _ On day 4, the students identified the subject and predicate in sentences and circled the vocabulary words. _ On day 5, we learned new vocabulary words, and created graphic organizers. We also created sentences using the vocabulary by using subjects and predicates. _ On day 6, we made predictions about the story, “My Diary from Here to There” by completing a Predict-O-Gram. We also wrote predictions (using complete sentences) about what the story would be about in our “diaries”.

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_ On days 7, 8, and 9, we enjoyed reading, analyzing, and asking and answering questions from the realistic fiction text, “My Diary from Here to There.” We also analyzed the character development by creating a read-around-display, and working in pairs to complete the task. _

Then, we shared our Read-Around-Displays with classmates.

_ On day 10, we created a paragraph answering the question, Did Amada change her culture when she moved? The students used text evidence to support their answers. _ On days 11-13, the students read the text, “I Was Dreaming of Coming to America,” and some Oral Histories. After answering questions related to the text orally, the students critically analyzed the illustrations of the text, using text evidence to support their opinions on the reason why the illustrator drew the image and the message she wanted to convey. They did this by creating journal portfolios. _

On day 15, the students made a Venn Diagram, comparing and contrasting the two texts we had read.

_

On day 16, the students defined vocabulary words using the Freyer model.

_ On days 17-20, the students listened to the teacher’s autobiography and read and responded to the autobiography titled, “A Refugee Remembers.” They wrote compound sentences related to the text. They also watched a short video about John Bul Dau, the author of the autobiography. Then, the students created their own autobiographies, by creating and sharing an Explosion Box. _ On day 21, we read a newspaper article that talked about the immigration of Puerto Ricans to the United States (US). Then, we analyzed the data we had gathered in a homework assignment.

We created a bar graph to represent the information on why people we interviewed immigrated, and why the characters in the texts we read immigrated. Then, we came to a conclusion that would help us build our ideal city. _ On days 22-24 we began constructing our ideal city using recycled materials. We worked as a group, shared ideas and opinions, and negotiated with one another. We worked cooperatively and solved minor disagreements. Once our city was finished, we shared our investigation with some students of our school. _ At the end of the Unit, we reflected and answered these essential question, How can from where you are change who you are? Does leaving Puerto Rico change your customs?

References Throughout Unit I, I definitely used the presentations that were given to us in the workshops. I also used Google to find information, such as character traits and the newspaper article. The book titled, Great Graphic Organizers to Use with Any Book by Scholastic, also provided me with interesting copies to share with the students.

Reflection I was very enthusiastic when I heard about the opportunity to participate in a workshop for professional development. I have learned so many applicable things to do in my classroom using technology and art.

I always thought it would be hard to do, due to the lack of materials. However, in the workshops the professors made me realize that the idea is not for my classroom to become some sort of virtual room, it is

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how you can use and integrate the technology we have available, such as the computer, YouTube, radios, and even Facebook, among others. These are tools our students know about and find interesting.

I was so scared thinking I would not be able to apply hardly any of this strategies, but it turned out I can do almost everything we have done in the workshops. As facilitators we have to use those opportunities to our advantage. Technology is not our enemy, and I have seen how beneficial it can be.

The workshops have helped me not only to clarify how to use technology and art, but also so many other themes and skills (for example: social interaction, collaboration, and how to use certain materials to reach the objectives and use the standards).

Sometimes I thought to myself “I cannot believe I could not think of any way to do this, because it is really so simple”. All we needed was encouragement and somebody to tell us we can do it. As a teacher I always want to do what is best for my students. I want them to be successful, and if doing these small adjustments will help them be this then I will most definitely apply these to my classroom. Of course it is a little harder for me, but we as teachers can manage anything. Technology is something that is here to stay, so we have to take it by the reigns and make it work, before it affects all our teaching.

It scares me how fast technology is moving, I hope what I have learned here doesn’t constantly change.

It’s not going to be easy, but these workshops have helped me learn to take small steps towards the goal.

Some professors filled us up with motivation, reminding us we are great as we are, but we can be better, making us feel good about ourselves and positive about wanting to learn to be even better.

It was very interesting to put ourselves in our students’ place. For example, I found that the hands-on activities were very interesting, so I always looked forward to those and then I came to thinking that this is how our students feel. Plus, the amount of times we used our phones or computers during the workshops are countless. This just shows us what a big part technology takes in our lives.

Teachers are always learning. I wish the workshops would have lasted longer. I am so saddened this wondrous journey has come to an end. These workshops helped me realize and look at the perspective of my students. Most of us believe the students would learn the same way we did, but during these workshops I realized they won’t learn the same way, because the world has changed, the needs are different, and these skills are now what we have to aim for.

We had fun doing most of the activities. I put myself into my students’ place and though, that if we as adults enjoyed these activities, they will too. These activities definitely increased their interest and attention towards the English language and they provide them with various fun ways to demonstrate their knowledge, comprehension and use of the language. All we needed was somebody to tell us we can do it.

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Reading and Writing with Flat Stanley Jeanette Nieves

Introduction Children at the elementary level are definitely a challenge.

Gaining and keeping their attention and trust is no easy task. I am blessed to have fifth and sixth graders. My sixth grade groups are small and easier to deal with.

On the other hand, my fifth grade groups are huge and usually too effervescent. This is my first experience as an elementary level teacher and I have noticed that small children demand acceptance and love from their teacher. The more accepted they feel, the more accepting they are toward the acquisition of English as a Second Language. What surprised me the most when I started this school year, is how cooperative parents are when the teacher approaches them to discuss low performance or discipline situations. In most cases, however, they do not participate in studying with their children much, maybe because they mostly have a low education level and do not see its pertinence.

They view studying as a teacher’s task.

There are certain situations we need to deal with when one arrives new to a school, especially one that is very well organized, where everyone knows well what must be done, and how to do it. The first thing is that if students are not seated and in silence, then you have no group control and everyone looks at you in a funny way. Therefore, we must begin to educate our coworkers in terms of the different ways our 21st century students learn. Changing schemes is really hard. Another situation in which the teaching-learning process is affected is when Special Education students have a program in which they receive two or more kinds of therapy on different days, and also visit their Special Ed classroom twice a week. Too often, many students are taken from my class to receive the services they are entitled to.

They usually return lost and rely on the teacher to give them the pending material. Once they lose the explanation and class dynamics, there is no turning back, even if they accept and review the material.

The Special Education program does not include help in the English class so the ideal situation would be to take the students out from classes in which they receive the help. It has always been my perception that when they are taken from classes repeatedly, they start thinking less of the lost class. It is important that everyone, students and parents, when absent for any reason, assume responsibility for the missed work in order to develop the skill of being in charge of their own future.

Characters Facing Challenges is the theme of Unit 6.1. Reading and writing is especially difficult to work with. Our children do not read on a daily basis and putting their thoughts in writing is not important at all. Doing so in a second language is unachievable, according to their perception. When I explained that we were integrating art as part of the evaluation, some were amazed, others worried, but all felt kind of enthusiastic about the idea that we were about to have a different English class. In this first Unit, my

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plans included to make them aware that they capable of reading and writing in English in an interesting and funny way. Empowering them was my main goal and maybe the clue to success.

Puerto Rico Core Standards _

Listening 6.L1a. Listen attentively and stay focused during a read aloud.

_

Reading 6.R.1 Evaluate main idea and recognize fiction from non-fiction.

_

•

6.R.2 Determine theme.

•

6.R.3 Compare and contrast characters and identify character traits.

Writing 6.W.3 Write descriptive paragraphs using the steps of the Writing Process.

Depth of Knowledge _

Level 2 Comparing, organizing, summarizing

_

Level 3 Analyzing and solving non-routine problems

Core Values The core values we wish to encourage are: _

Optimism, lead them to believe in themselves;

_

Courage, to do what needs to be done to gain knowledge that will lead them to live better lives;

_

Collaboration within themselves under the facilitator’s hand;

_

Diversity and Equity in which we embrace the differences and recognize that we all learn differently.

Children usually try to put less effort yet be benefited the most for an immediate reward. Our students mostly come from Villas de Monterey, a huge Public Housing development just across the street from the school. They have access to a public library with computers and tutors. Even though they are immersed in games and movies in the English Language, their first reaction is “yo no se inglés.” Once you start talking to them, interruptions with the “yo no entiendo” are usual. Their greatest handicap is their attitude. Dealing with this is the most difficult task. Art and technology has really helped me to convince them that anything is possible, if you try hard enough. Lots of love and perseverance are needed to endure this mission.

The skills to be worked with are listening, reading and responding to complex instructions, identifying and organizing events in a narrative text, sorting and organizing relevant events, and using a variety of sentence types. The Unit begins with a read-aloud in which students clarify vocabulary and mainly work with character traits. The performance task included Story Analysis. Along the years I have noticed that our children do not like to read on their own. I considered paired reading, but I wanted to live their reactions to the story Flat Stanley. At first, when I asked them to sit on the floor with me, they looked at me weirdly. After a while they started to relax. I began to read aloud and they seemed to enjoy it.

After the first chapter, they worked a T- Chart with their characters and their traits on the reusable mats (provided in the Program). We read the story, then they colored their own Flat Stanley or Flat Stella. Using their cellular phones, they saw different personalities pictured with their Flat Stanley, such as President

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Obama and Jackie Chan. This part of the plan encouraged them to picture themselves with their own puppets. A writing journal was assigned in which they would take a picture of themselves in different places and write descriptive paragraphs about the activities of the day the picture was taken. The most difďŹ cult part of the project was the editing part. They usually wrote the way they talk without giving any merit to orthography or syntax.

I made reference to the Puerto Rico Core Standards, Unit and Weekly Plans provided by the Department of Education and activities from the Internet on Flat Stanley. From the materials provided, The Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers was particularly useful. Also used was Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL. This kind of proposal is God sent for teachers. Having the opportunity to share with other English teachers is rare, though very important because you can compare experiences, activities, and outcomes.

The resources were great, well prepared and very professional. The materials are beautiful and up to date, but most of all appealing to our students. The short graphic novels are their favorite. I can say out loud that I grew as a professional with this experience. I am one of the few persons who can say I love my job. I believe that I can make the difference by helping children change their realities, now with new weapons in the form of art and technology.

Other Evidence on Writing Activities Using Art

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Visiting Puerto Rico

Janivette Lebrón

Introduction: An Incredible, Enriching Experience Within a heavily damaged educational system, teachers in Puerto Rico are giving the extra mile for their students to prepare them as best as they can to live in what has become a very challenging society. As an ESL teacher, I fight every day against sociocultural factors that affect how kids learn English or any other language, because they yet have not understood the importance of being bilingual and its effect in the long term. My school is no exception to this. Haydee Caballero School has an enrollment of almost 400 students at the intermediate level. The highest percent of students registered belong to the Special Education program, which makes it more complex and diverse. I teach four groups of six graders and one group of seventh grade that belongs to the inclusion program. The school is located in an urban area in Caguas. It is for this reason that I chose to teach and work in my classroom with cooperative groups as a main strategy. It helps them to develop confidence and helps me to have a leader in each table to back me up. This creates an atmosphere of teamwork among the students, which support them to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses.

The unit I worked with for this project was 7.2 Puerto Rico Travel Brochure. We worked specifically with the performance task of the brochure. For this task, they had to bring information about a town, because I have no access to computers in the classroom. The town was given to them randomly. In class, they first had to follow my instruction step by step. For this they received the help of the assistants. After having the folders in the correct form, they had to decorate each pocket with images related to the town. Then I provided the students index cards so they could summarize each part to complete the brochure. At the end, they had to present their work in front of the class and talk about important facts of the town.

Background Information For the purpose of this project, I wanted to select a group that could really benefit from the advantages of mixing art with language to improve their skills in language acquisition and comprehension. I selected

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this group because I felt inspired by the way they worked altogether. It is a small learning community who gets along very well, which is a must, because good student relationships are needed when you are working with this population. Instead of learning a concept, first they must trust their peers to then know the utility of what they will be learning. It is important when working with an inclusion group to use specific tasks to guarantee a holistic model of learning. This holistic attention allows the student to learn the usefulness of the skill from small, but specific steps. In this case, art is the tool that allows to develop the steps to accomplish that whole.

I selected a seventh-grade special needs group. They are part of a program named inclusion whose purpose is to mix regular students with special needs students. This group consists of seven students, one regular, two autistic, one legally blind, one with ADD, and two with health/learning disabilities.

The group has a Special Education teacher and four assistants who are with the students at all times to help them with the individualized approach.

Lesson Plan - Grade: 7th Theme: Visiting Puerto Rico Unit 7.2: Puerto Rico Travel Brochure

Integration: Social Studies and Art

Puerto Rico Core Standards Listening 7.L.1 Listen and collaborate with peers during social and academic interactions in class, group, and partner discussions in read-aloud, oral presentations, and a variety of grade-appropriate topics. 7.L.1c Listen and respond during a read-aloud from a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts to show comprehension, generalize, relate to character and setting, and make connections from personal experience.

Speaking 7.S.2 Respond orally to closed and open-ended questions.

7.S.5a Make predictions and inferences, as well as draw conclusions from listening to a variety of texts, performances, and multimedia sources.

Reading 7.R.1 Read a variety of texts and multimedia resources (when accessible) to explain ideas, facts, events, cultural identity, genre, and processes, supplying textual evidence and connections/relationships to support analysis and conclusions. Recognize fact vs. opinion and fiction vs. nonfiction as well as facts/ supporting details from the texts.

7.R.2I Determine a main idea of an informational text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

7.R.2L Determine a theme or main idea of a literary text and how it is conveyed through particular details.

7.R.2La Provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

7.R.5I Analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, chapter, or section fits into the overall structure of an informational text and contributes to the development of the setting and ideas.

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Writing 7.W .6 Conduct short research projects to write a report that uses several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.

Language 7.LA.4c Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauri), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.

Transversal Themes: Knowledge, Skills and Competencies, Technology, Economy, Cultural Diversity, Environment Depth of Knowledge: 3 Objectives: After an extensive research of information, students will: _

summarize the important facts of the town they were assigned.

_

follow the teacher’s instructions step by step.

_

construct a model of the journal portfolio to use as a brochure.

Materials folders, glue, scissors, coloring pencils, pictures, index cards, construction paper, ruler, ribbon Procedure Initial: Teacher welcomes the students and tells them to take out the materials she asked to bring a week ago. Then the teacher shows and explains an example of a final product so they can have an idea of what they will be doing.

Development: Teacher goes step by step with the students so they can correctly take the measurements and carefully fold the form of a brochure with pockets that would serve as an informational packet of the town they were assigned. Students decorate, color, draw on their brochure to make it fun. After finishing with the craft part, students summarize the important facts of the town using index cards given by the teacher.

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Closing: Students come to the front of the classroom and present the results of their work and give a brief presentation about the town of Puerto Rico they were assigned.

Evidence of Students’ Work References Department of Education of Puerto Rico. (2016, December 16). Curricular Maps: Seventh Grade. 2014.

Sexto, M. (2016). Journal portfolio craft. PowerPoint Presentation. Workshop for Professional development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners. University of Puerto Rico.

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Reflection “I am enough of a realist to understand that I can’t reach every child, but I am more of an optimistic to get up every morning and try.“ Preston Morgan Teachers face challenges in the teaching process that make us feel we are not meeting the standards and goals we are supposed to achieve with our students and that our job is incomplete. Different factors influence what we teach and the way our students learn. Sometimes the struggle can be hard, but like Professor Cristina Guerra said at the beginning, we are super teachers; we have super powers. Projects like this one provide us with tools that help us go up and forward.

The first time I heard about this proposal I was working in San Juan at the time. I remember I was one of the first teachers to fill out the paper to be enrolled. In the summer of 2015, I decided not to participate in the Project. At that moment, I thought it was going to be a waste of time, even though later I regretted it, because I didn’t do anything that summer. However, in the summer of 2016 when I received the call from Zorivette, the secretary, it felt like the right thing to do. Man, was I right! All my life I have thought everything happens for a reason and I think this year was the right moment to take these workshops.

It has been an incredible, enriching experience being part of this Project. I have improved and evolved significantly as an ESL teacher. Now I have a better perspective and knowledge on how 21st century kids learn and what should matter to them. Workshops like the ones offered by Professor Elsie Candelaria helped me to understand what I should teach my 21st century kids and how to do it and take advantage of my digital natives. Professor Anibal Muñoz, Professor Morales, and Professor Milland taught me how to use the technology I have at my hands in an efficient and purposeful way to have my students wrapped in a productive environment. For instance, I used the movie previews activity to teach inference and draw conclusions to my 7th graders. They loved it, because they could understand the concept easily. I am planning to use the video project next semester with my six graders with unit 6.3. Also Professors Marielis Sexto and Cristina Guerra awakened my artistic gifts with all the useful crafts they taught us to use with the kids in the classroom. I have used the Journal Portfolio concept to present information about a town of Puerto Rico with unit 7.2 of the curricular maps and the diorama to explain an event for unit 7.1. Students loved using their hands in a creative way and learned how to organize and synthesize information.

As a result of this Project, I feel even more prepared with new and innovative strategies to teach ESL. Students are having more fun with the activities and materials I have used with them for some of the topics in class. Most of the strategies and crafts I have learned here I have shared with other colleagues in school and with my husband who is a history teacher. He has used almost every craft I have learned here, like the journal portfolio structure as a timeline, the paper bag book to name past governors of Puerto Rico, and the diorama to present information of an island of the Antilles.

Thanks to this proposal I went for the first time to a PRTESOL Convention. I had a great experience and learned a lot. I enjoyed the presentation of the proposal by the professors and the 15 minutes of fame we all had. The professor that impacted me the most was Dorina. She had such great energy and the writing tips she taught us were incredible. I had so much fun with her that I didn’t want the session to end, because it was contagious. Another thing I have to thank this proposal is for the friends I have made. Yineska, Carmen, and Yoly accepted me in their table from day one and a beautiful friendship began. We had a great time during the Project and even more fun during the Convention. Last, but not least, I have met colleagues with whom I can share my frustrations, clarified doubts, and contribute ideas for the class.

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PA R T I C I PA N TS R E F L E C T I O N S

R E F L E C T I O N S MY EXPERIENCE APPLYING THE STRATEGIES LEARNED IN THE WORKSHOPS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO Denise M. Algorri Matos

ESL Teacher Secondary Level Introduction I teach English at the secondary level to 6th and 7th graders this year at an intermediate level school called Escuela de la Comunidad Padre Rufo M. Fernández in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Because the Bayamón District is in a pilot program, the 6th grade is now in the intermediate level. Rules at the elementary level are very different from the secondary level. Many students can pass a grade failing a course in sixth grade, but at the intermediate level you have to take summer school. I have many 7th graders taking English and other subjects at the 6th grade level because they failed the year before. There is no summer school for students who failed in 6th grade level classes. Many students come from this “system.” Once students who have failed reach the intermediate level they have these “lagoons” or as we say in Spanish “lagunas,” which refers to students with academic deficiency who did not learn basic skills and now are stuck in a level that is hard for them. In the case of ESL teachers who teach in a different language than the students’ vernacular, it is hard dealing with academic deficiencies. It is not only our job to teach students pronunciation and vocabulary, but also to teach more advanced topics, such as essays, debates, research skills, personal opinions, and deeper understanding of literature. It is difficult to teach if students do not even know what the simple 5W’s and 1H mean. I can say that 90% of my students are not interested in learning English and the other 10% learn it, because they like it and enjoy the language, or because they watch movies, television, or surf the internet. It is easier to teach this student population. For this reason, many teachers have to teach the class in English and explain it in Spanish if we want our students to even work in the class. Many are accustomed to copying from the board and if nothing is written on the board, they believe they are not going to do anything in class.

In my case, I decided to implement ideas that I have learned through my colleagues and the strategies I have learned in the workshops. For example, at the beginning of the first semester in 6th grade I began with the theme of character traits. I used the Explosion Design Box from Prof. Marielis Sexto to make it fun and entertaining. It was a beautiful experience while learning about themselves, in addition to teaching adjectives. For 7th graders, after studying folktales from Puerto Rico, we painted Taíno symbols on rocks just as we did with Prof. Marielis Sexto in her workshop. I used also many assessments from a book given in the workshop, The Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers. Prof. Zuliet Rivera and I called it the teacher’s bible because it is a big help for us taking into consideration that the curricular maps for

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6th grade English were left in draft form and never completed by the Department of Education (DE).

Flat Stanley or Flat Stalina, as my students called the girl, were introduced in Unit 7.2, Traveling through Puerto Rico, and went along with them through Puerto Rico’s municipalities. This project has helped me and my students very much considering they have many academic deficiencies and think very little of school. They were motivated and enjoyed it very much. That is why I am a strong believer of John Dewey’s “learning by doing” philosophy. Since not everyone is good in academic classes, I can see there is so much talent at other things that students can do. We should encourage them to seek what they are good at against all odds. Whatever situations students have, whether in school, personally, or at home, we as teachers should encourage a bright future for them.

I began using Unit 6.1 for 6th grade, Characters Facing Challenges, which deals with character traits.

After much explanation, reading a story, doing story maps, working with adjectives, and various vocabulary exercises, we then applied the making of the Design Explosion Box using what they learned about character traits. They got in pairs and did the character traits of themselves. Each completed all 16 spaces using scrapbook paper that I bought with my own money. Then students chose the colors and the ribbons, which I brought from home. After they finished the scrapbook, they made an oral presentation as a final evaluation of the Unit.

For 7th grade in Unit 7.1, Folktales of Puerto Rico, students read several folktales, completed story maps, and worked with vocabulary word exercises. Then the students chose a Taíno symbol presented in class that represented something from Puerto Rico and themselves. They painted the rock completely, then the symbol, and presented their work in front of the class. They also explained why they chose that symbol.

Currently, I am doing the mini poetry book with the 7th graders Unit 7.3, My Identity. In the future for 6th grade level, I will be using the journal portfolio for the poetry theme. For Unit 6.5 and Unit 6.4, Memoirs, and Unit 7.4, Author’s Purpose, I’ll use the movie trailers.

In this part I will present the Unit that was used the most and the assigned tasks, including the activities I planned and taught my 6th and 7th graders, bearing in mind that I used the Curricular Maps, Standards and Expectations, Assessments, and Performance Tasks recommended by the Department of Education.

Each class lasts 60 minutes, two groups for 7th grade and three groups of 6th graders.

For my 6th graders in Unit 6.1, Characters Facing Challenges, the topic was character traits. To interest my students after presenting the topic and working on DE tasks, I used the Design Explosion Box from Prof. Marielis Sexto that I learned in the summer workshop. I grouped the students in pairs and gave them the scrapbook paper. Using the PowerPoint presentation, we followed the steps one by one and completed the box. It was extremely hard; my three groups consist of 30 students and to make them follow instructions was a very hard task, since the groups are so large. It took four days to complete! The boxes came out beautiful and the students had to choose eight character traits that defined them.

My two groups of 7th graders are smaller groups of 17 and 21 to be exact, and they are older and behave a lot better. I introduced Unit 7.1, Being Puerto Rican, through Folktales. After working the DE tasks with the students, they painted a Taíno symbol given to us in the summer workshop by Prof. Marie Sexto. I presented the students different Taíno symbols. They had to choose the best one they identified with or liked the best. They were given each a rock, which I bought with my money. Each student painted the whole rock with the acrylic colors I brought from my home. They also painted the symbols, and gave them a final touch with clear nail polish coating. Students presented their work in front of the class and explained why they chose that symbol. It took us two days to complete and the students’ work was exhibited in the library for Puerto Rico Week. My students come from a low socioeconomic status; many live in public residential housing or Plan 8 Housing (help from the government). I have eight students

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repeating the 6th grade for the second or third time. I have six students from 7th grade taking my class in the 6th grade level, because they flunked the class in 6th grade and there is no summer school for 6th grade in the intermediate level. These are issues that the DE needs to desperately sort out. I have a group of 16 7th graders who have repeated a grade at least once. I have a lot of Special Education (SE) students: Class 6-1 has 6 of 31 SE students; 6-2 has 18 of 26 SE students; 6-3 has 15 of 27 SE students; 7-1 has 4 of 21 SE students, and 7-2 has 10 of 16 SE students. You can imagine what we deal with in our school, each one of us having special cases. Many of the SE or regular students have “lagoons” or “lagunas” in many if not all the academic areas. I believe that this happens, because as I mentioned before, at the elementary level if you fail one class you get promoted to the next grade. However, when they reach the intermediate level, everything changes. If a student fails at that level, he or she has to take summer school except for 6th grade students. If they fail more than two classes, they have to repeat the grade.

My experience in this workshop and the material given to us has been a blessing to me; it has been an enriching experience. Before this workshop, I was looking for ways to make the English class more exciting and fun. I also wanted for students to actually be interested in the class, to want to learn and work for their English class. I had done basic things like blogs, representations through paintings, and drama, but using arts and crafts, using the radio, and the movie trailers has been very good. At the moment, I am using the mini poetry book from Prof. Marielis Sexto for Unit 7.3, My Identity, which is all about poetry and ode poems. I am completing it with the students to finish off the Unit by creating their own poems. For the 7th graders, it has been a very good experience. I have loved it and will continue to go forward with levels 7th and up. With the 6th graders, it is hard because if the groups were smaller, I would do the activities, but if the groups have 28 or more students, it is almost impossible to do things with them. It is too stressful to deal with, not including everything the DE asks the teachers to comply with, such as testing, assessment, performance tasks, all the paperwork, and the referral cases that have to be written to the social worker, the director, and the counselor.

This experience was amazing and the professors were excellent professionals that really gave their 200% dedication to the Project, and the workshops. They really and truly care for the future of the English Program.

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PROFFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS OF 21ST CENTURY LEARNERS: ENTICING ESL STUDENTS TO ACQUIRE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE THROUGH ART AND TECHNOLOGY Juan Yllescas Not long ago, I used to sit in front of English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers back in Nicaragua, and always felt enchanted by them. They were so motivated to teach the language and I was eager to learn it. In hindsight, I can now see how much energy a teacher must have in order to be a good teacher. The project, Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners, has taught me to create a bridge between my experiences as a student and my own practice as a teacher.

I have been teaching ESL here on the Island for 16 years now, most of the time in Cataño, Puerto Rico.

During these years, I have noticed first-hand the struggles of this community to try to ENTICE our students to study as a way to escape the vicious circle of dependence from public aid. However, the problems are still here facing educators every day; it is clear that when we are in front of 30 students with social, economic, and academic problems, teachers have to have a set of tools to make sure that students find success in school.

I am currently teaching 7th and 8th grade at Mercedes García de Colorado, in Urbanización Las Vegas, Cataño, where 85% of our students are under the poverty line and in constant fear of the wars between two neighborhood house projects: Las Vegas and Las Palmas. My school sends most graduate students to Francisco Oller High School. We believe our students flourish in high school.

My school is categorized as Enfoque (Focus) according to the Plan de Flexibilidad or Flexibility Plan.

The faculty has organized its MECPA (Modelo Ecléctico de Comunidades Profesionales de Aprendizaje (Eclectic Model of Professional Learning Communities). My school is also on the Comité de Planificación (Planning Committee). We are also working with E.S.S.A. (Every Student Succeeds Act). We believe we are doing things right!

My home classroom, 7-3, has 29 students, 15 male students and 14 female students. Most of them are placed under the poverty line. I also have nine Special Education students and a few more that evidently need to be under this umbrella. Classes for me are tough. They drain me!

Dr. Candelaria is my mentor. She has been working with me towards a classroom visit in February or March next year. When professor Candelaria visited me, she did not have to wonder about the real structural conditions of my classroom, because she is immersed in the situation of ESL teachers in Puerto Rico. She was very generous as to suggest a few strategies in classroom management, as well as to ask me about what I had in mind in order to ENTICE my students in acquiring communicative competence in English. I checked my calendar and told her that I will most certainly be dealing with the Poetry Unit in March next year, so she suggested that I try to foresee the difficulties of teaching poetry by teaching

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lessons using song lyrics that focus on the identity of students vis a vis the political and social conflict that Puerto Rico is facing with the United States. I am now in the process of identifying some songs that will help me develop these lessons. I am confident I will have a fair amount of material to develop a lesson using My projector and My laptop, as well as My speaker. There is a special classroom for meetings and conferences, but if I use it, it would not show what really happens every day.

Coming to the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, has given me more strength, and more stamina to continue working as an ESL teacher for the Department of Education. I know it will continue to be difficult, it will never be easier, but now I feel motivated because I have been congratulated for what I have been doing and for accepting the challenge to go on.

Again, coming here has taught me to be more insightful about my teaching practice. I feel I have more tools. I am more knowledgeable about UbD, arts and crafts, and the use of computers in the classroom. I have learned to assess my strengths and weaknesses. One of my weaknesses is that when things don ́t go the way I expect, I become irritable and impatient. On the other hand, one of my strengths is the rapport I have begun to develop with my students. I am friendlier, I listen to them more, and I help them even if they don’t ask me. That is why sometimes they tell me I am a PRESENTAO, a “budinski”. I have to teach my students to become more independent. I want them to try, maybe fail, but then succeed. I know it takes time and discipline. That’s the challenge!

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REFLECTION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY PROPOSAL Yineska Rosario Introduction I work in a school in Humacao named Adrian Medina. I decided to finish my Master’s degree in Universidad del Turabo in Caguas, Puerto Rico. While taking a few classes, I got to know an amazing person named, Lizzette de Jesús, who became my friend. She was the person who told me about this special project that was being offered by the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras.

During the summer and last semester, I learned a lot of strategies to teach English. I got great ideas from Professor Marielis Sexto about how to integrate art in the English class to make our students get more interested in learning. Having special second graders who have problems with their behavior has been very difficult. In unit 2.2, Where Are We?, Theme: Landforms, students had to choose a landform from the ones taught in class. They had to create a Diorama. Students did the Diorama in the classroom.

Results of my students’ creativity appear below.

From the other professors I got lots of amazing ideas. For example, from Professor Anibal Muñoz, I got the idea of creating videos for my students by integrating technology. That I am a digital immigrant and my students are digital natives, was taught and reminded always by Professor Elsie Candelaria. I had an extraordinary experience.

Thanks for everything.

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ENGAGING, ENTHUSIASTIC, AND MOTIVATING TEACHING STRATEGIES THAT MY STUDENTS LOVE LEARNT FROM THE PROPOSAL Roxanna Del Mar Silva Robles

Introduction When I was 15 years old, my journey as a teacher started. Even though it was only as a tutor, I knew I was going to become a teacher someday. I worked as a full time history teacher for five years, but it wasn’t until two years ago that I found my true passion. Being an English teacher has been a challenge, not because my students are second language learners, but because I never thought I could be an English teacher and do a great job in the classroom. This year I am teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in Rafael Cordero School in Cataño, Puerto Rico. The work load is hard, but not impossible. Thanks to the Professional Development for English Teachers of 21st Century Learners proposal, I have improved my teaching skills; therefore, I am going to present some of the techniques I have learnt, techniques that my students have loved.

Activities with Sixth Grade Since my sixth grade students lack basic vocabulary in English, I implemented “Reading Rods.” They are learning resources to teach phonics and reading concepts to ESL students. They also help to make the class more engaging and help students in spelling. Reading Rods helped me support differentiated instruction and independent practice. My students loved to work with them. They had fun and made competitions between each other on who made the best sentences.

One of the activities for Unit 6.2: Challenges Facing Communities is a Triorama about the story, “Stray”

by Cynthia Rylent. Students were excited with this learning activity. They were able to express their creativity, and at the same time, I was able to evaluate reading comprehension of the story. Also, we created a Problem Based Learning (PBL) laboratory about stray dogs in their community. One of Dr. Cristina Guerra’s workshops came in hand for this learning activity. Each student had different roles.

Their ideas were heard and they felt lots of mixed emotions when they knew they were the “owners” of the classroom. To be honest, I thought that sixth grade students did not have the maturity required for a PBL lab. It was a great surprise for me to see them engaged and enthusiastic while working.

Activities with Seventh Grade I employed the Story Cubes with my seventh graders for Unit 7.1 Being Puerto Rican Through Folktales.

We discussed the different types of folktales, such as myths, legends, fairy tales, and fables. These

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cubes guided my students while doing their Performance Task. With them, they got the basic idea of the setting, main character, and the problem of the folktale they had to write. It was so fulfilling to watch them engaged and motivated. They really loved to throw those dices! These story cubes made the class interesting and fun for the students. Their stories were original and amusing.

We celebrated the Semana Puertorriqueña (Puerto Rico Week) by creating the Vejigantes paper dolls that Dr. Marielis Sexto taught us in the Summer Workshops. Students did magnificent work with the vejigantes. Each one was unique and creative. They were extremely proud to present their work in front of the school and their parents.

Now we are working with Unit 7.3 Poetry. My students are creating their own poems using some of the techniques presented by Dr. Anibal Muñiz and Dr. Sexto.

Activities with Eighth Grade In Unit 8.1 Analyzing Character’s decisions, we read many stories, such as “Code Red”, “The Window”, and “The Legend of King Arthur” (comic version). Instead of giving them a test at the end of the Unit, I utilized these cubes to evaluate them. I would never have imagined that with some dice I could evaluate students, but more important, it helped me realize that my students really did analyze those stories. I worked with an Explosion Box as a Performance Task for Unit 8.2 Memoirs and Transformative Decisions.

Instead of writing a paper about Personal Memoirs about Transformative Decisions, I will implement this innovative and fun to make box to trigger their memories and emotions.

Reflection In September 2015, I started my journey as an English teacher. I still cannot believe all the things I have achieved. These workshops not only have taught me new teaching techniques, but also have instilled the confidence that I needed to teach the language. They have helped me make my class interesting for the students. Every morning I feel great pride to find my students asking me about what new things we will do during the day.

I am very grateful for this opportunity and for all the professors that made it happen. From these workshops, I have grown as a teacher and made great friends

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THE DILEMMAS OF TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN PUERTO RICO Zuliet Rivera Ferrer I am an English teacher since 2012. I graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras in 2008 as a Spanish teacher. I taught Spanish for a short period of time because that area was saturated and opportunities were hard. I was bilingual since I was very little and my mother inspired me to continue studying, so I decided to get my English certification. I completed my degree in two different colleges while I was already working as an English teacher with a provisional status. I went through all the evaluations at the Department of Education where I took an oral and written test with higher supervisors.

Since then I have been a certified English teacher in the secondary level.

One of the hardest parts of being an English teacher is seeing how many difficulties students still have with the language. It does not matter that we are living in 2017; some students lack a simple vocabulary in the English language. Most of my students cannot work or begin sentences by themselves. They are always waiting for a key, hint, or clue so they can continue to work. Their diagnostic test results show that most of them understand written English, but not spoken language. Our educational system requires complying with the Puerto Rico Core Standards: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Language. It is very common to watch my students read an article and answer some questions, but sadly the speaking and listening part is a nightmare. Some students will ask, “Why is this class in ENGLISH all the time.”

My students’ lack of vocabulary causes them to not understand when I speak to them, unless I try to act or interpret with my hands, pictures, or illustrations. I am not trying to exaggerate, but at some point I asked a student to grab something, like a pencil, pen, or paper and he did not get it until I showed him.

However, three fifths of my students can work, speak, and write the language by themselves.

Most of my students belong to a low-income population. Some parents are illiterate; sometimes the student has to sign a school document for his/her parents in front of us. Most of my students live in areas where drugs and violence are part of their environment. More than one has lost someone important, because of drug wars between communities. At least three students per group are repeating the grade.

My groups consist of 31 or 35 students per class. At least 12 out of 30 belong to the Special Education Program. I have to make all the required arrangements for each student in order to comply with the law and offer him or her the best education. Everyday I have to do the following: plan lessons, grade papers, meet with the Social Worker or the Principal (my school is a ticking bomb in terms of discipline issues) arrange parents meetings or call parents, plan Special Ed strategies, create interesting activities to motivate my students, practice written and oral exercises, deal with any surprise of the day, take my work home, never finish, and then face another day. During the day, I am a teacher, mother, counselor, nurse, doctor, teacher again, almost a secretary, priest/pastor, receptionist, and the list goes on.

Sometimes I feel that as an English teacher in Puerto Rico I am teaching a foreign language. When you start to understand how poor your students’ knowledge in terms of English is, it is scary, because the walls that you have to help them break are higher and deeper. There is another problem in the public schools, a lack of resources, such as paper, copies, technology, and computers, among others. The system

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tells us that we are teaching 21-century students, but I still have to work with a chalkboard and desks. As a teacher, I spend my money to do my job, which I am not supposed to do, because I work for an agency that should provide the needs of the students, teachers, and the whole school. When you get into a school and there are no supplies, the load is bigger and bigger, and heartbreaking.

As an English teacher I work different strategies with my students like role-play, oral routines, peer work, competitions, cooperative learning, and critical thinking. I always integrate the arts within my activities, since my students are very creative and I like to exploit their abilities. I like to tell them stories, act, and make jokes with them because my classroom is not a restricted area. It is a workplace full of fun, discipline, respect, and love. They love to be in their English classroom where everything is a challenge.

It is an environment where their voices are heard. Everyday I get candy, a drawing, a sticker, or a smile that tells me that I am doing a good job. Even tears mean that there is meaning and they care. Nothing that was good enough was never easy.

I wish I had a magic wand so I could create better conditions for everyone in our school system. I know that as a teacher we all want to do our job and be the greatest, but the conditions are sad, unfair, and the salary is a joke. The system does not support us, but despite all those sad things, being a teacher is a treasure. Once you get it no matter what happens or how hard it is, you will not let go. When your student’s face shines with the power of knowledge, that is the best that can happen during the day. Being a teacher today is being an idealist, a warrior. I believe in my job and in what we are doing for society. If I educate my students and push them forward, then in the future they will push others and ďŹ ght for the ideals of an educated and intelligent country where education is our only salvation.

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Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de RĂ­o Piedras Facultad de EducaciĂłn Centro de Investigaciones Educativas